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P. F. DUNDON, Manager 

San Francisco 
Timber Preserving Company 

OFFICE 

223-225 Folsom Street 

SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. 

WORKS 

Central Basin, Illinois and Santa Clara Streets 
POTRERO 



Creosoting Timber of any Size and Length 5 Creosoting Piles of any 
Length 5 Burnettizing of Railroad Ties 



We deal in Piles, Telegraph Poles and Lumber, and are prepared 
to quote best market rates for delivery, either treated or untreated 



Construction Timbers and Foundation Timbers 
treated by 

CREOSOTE OR BURNETT PROCESS 



Prices and Full Information Furnished 
on Application 



1 f\4&! 



Printed by 

The Stanley-Taylor Company 

San Francisco 



GIFT 
eOL. C. M. TOWNSENO 
OCT. 22. 1940 






[NTR< >DUCT< >RY. 

We have been practically engaged in the business 
of timber preservation for more than 7 years past, 
and during that time have confined ourselves almost 
exclusively to treating by the Creosote Process. 
During that period of time we have made every en- 
deavor to obtain all the reliable information which 
was available upon the general subject of timber 
preservation, and we will place before our readers 
only such information as we have gained by our own 
experience and that quoted from the most reliable 
authorities which we could obtain. While our 
works are of a very extensive character, and so 
arranged that we can treat timber by any of the 
known processes, our investigations and experience 
in that direction would prohibit us from recommend- 
ing any other but the Creosote Process, to give our 
patrons the most profitable results. While the first 
cost of many of the other processes is very much 
cheaper than the Creosote treatment, the general 
satisfactory results have at all times proven 
favorable to the Creosote process. As well as our 
own experience in this direction, we will quote from 
the American Society of Civil Engineers; The 
Associated Institution of Civil Engineers of 
England; Thomas William Britton, late Sur- 
veyor of the Metropolitan Board of Works and 
Silver Medallist of the Royal Institute of British 
Architects 1854-56-70, in his work entitled: "A 
Treatise on the Origin, Progress, Prevention and 
Cure of Dry Rot in Timber," with remarks on the 
means of preserving woods from destruction bv Sea 
Worms; also, H. Ward, M, A., F. R. S., F. L. S. ; 



4 .SAWN TIMBERS CREOSOTED. 

Professor of Botany at the Royal Indian College, 
Cooper Hill, in his work on " Timber and Some of 
Its Diseases," also Mr. E. Christian, General Man- 
ager of the Norfolk Creosoting Co., Norfolk, Vir- 
ginia, U. S. A., who has had many years' experience 
in the treating of timber. Also, Samuel Bagster 
Boulton, member of the Institution of Civil 
Engineers of England, who has given this subject 
a study a great part of his life ; Mr. E. R. Andrews 
of the American Society of Civil Engineers, who 
has devoted many years, in company with other mem- 
bers of his society, to the investigations on the subject 
of timber preservation ; Octave Chanute, Chairman of 
Committee on Wood Preservation, American 
Society of Civil Engineers, who has investigated 
most fully the above subject; J. W. Putnam, mem- 
ber of the American Society of Civil Engineers; 
Howard C. Holmes, late Chief Engineer of the 
Board of State Harbor Commissioners, San 
Francisco, California, U. S. A. ; also, the late W. G. 
Curtis of the Association of Engineering Soci- 
eties and John D. Isaacs, both of whom have had 
extensive experience with timber preservation. 

The weight of opinion of all the authorities that 
we have found on this subject, as well as our own 
experience, leads us to say most unhesitatingly that 
Creosoting is by far the most economic method of 
treating piles and timber for structural or sub- 
merged work, notwithstanding its high first cost. 

The San Francisco Timber Preserving Co. has 
a capacity of 3,000 lineal feet of piling in 24 hours, 
or 30,000 feet B. M. of lumber. We treat piles and 
lumber of all dimensions up to 120 feet in length 
with an injection of 20 pounds of Creosote per cubic 
foot if desired. 

We are at the present time installing an addition 
to our plant for treating structural timber and pav- 



PILES CREOSOTED. 5 

ing blocks by a patented process in which crude 
petroleum and asphalt will be the principal com- 
modities. 

We will be pleased at all times to convey such 
information to our patrons as they may desire if at 
our command. 

San Francisco Timber Preserving Co. 



SAWN TIMBERS BURNETTIZED. 



CREOSOTED PILES AND LUMBER. 

Unless all saps and water are thoroughly ex- 
tracted from the piles and timber before creosote is 
injected, the value of the treatment is greatly 
diminished. 

All the lumber for structural purposes should 
have all fitting and trimming done before treating, 
otherwise the value of the treatment is greatly 
diminished. If in case trimming is unavoidable, or 
if holes are bored for bolts or other purposes, swab 
the parts thoroughly with hot creosote. 

In wharf and trestle construction, workmen 
usually bore holes in piles for staging to cut off 
piles ; these holes should be filled with creosoted 
plugs driven in. 

Creosote should be kept in hot solution by sub- 
merging a can containing it in boiling water. 

Don't allow dogs or cant hooks to puncture holes 
in piles except near ends which will go below ground 
line or above high water line. 

Insist on having tight fitting rings used in driving 
piles. 

It is a common custom with raftsmen to dog 
creosoted piles carelessly at any point in their length, 
the same as raw piles. If this is not avoided, serious 
damage will be done by producing holes in the pile 
between high and low water line. 

If piles are driven without rings checks are likely 
to be developed by which the Teredo can enter. 

To maintain the full value of creosoting in piles 

Or timber, the TREATED SURFACE SHOULD BE PRO- 
TECTED UNTIL FASTENED IX PLACE. After that it is 
perfectly safe from worms or rot for an indefinite 

time, IF WELL TREATED. 



RAILROAD TIES CREOSOTED. 



Many years of experiment have proved that no 
process, calculated for the preservation of timber, 
can hope for success unless it replaces the liquid and 
semi-liquid portions of the wood with a substance 
that is insoluble and non-volatile, and under the con- 
ditions which obtain in each particular case. 

Extract from " Creosoted Timber, Its Preparation 
and Uses/' by Edmund Christian, General 
Manager of the Norfolk Creosoting Co., Nor- 
folk, Virginia, U. S. A. 



TELEGRAPH POLES CREOSOTED. 



PRESERVING TIMBER BY PATENT 
PROCESSES, ETC. 

(Extract from "A Treatise on Dry Rot in Timber," by T. A. Britton.) 

Long years of practical experience has shown that 
timber, however prone to dry or wet rot, may be 
preserved from both by the use of certain metallic 
solutions, or other suitable protective matters. 

All the various processes may be said somewhat 
to reduce the transverse strength of the timber when 
dry, and the metallic salts are affected at the iron 
bolts or fastenings. The natural juices of some 
woods do this ; and bolts which have united beams 
of elm and pitch pine will often corrode entirely 
away at the junction. 

The processes adopted for resisting the chemical 
changes in the tissues of the wood are all founded 
on the principle that it is essential to inject some 
material which shall at once precipitate the coagu- 
able portion of the albumen retained in the tissues of 
the wood in a permanent insoluble form, so that it 
will not hereafter be susceptible of putrefactive de- 
composition. For this purpose, many substances, 
many solutions, have been employed with variable 
success, but materials have been sometimes intro- 
duced for this purpose which produced an effect 
just the opposite to what was anticipated. 

Experience has shown that timber is permeable, 
at least by aqueous solutions, only so long as the sap 
channels are free from incrustation. 

Such in general is the case with beech, elm, poplar, 
and hornbeam, the capillary tubes of which are 
always open, or, at least, close very slowly. At the 
same time it may be said that there must remain ever 



RAILROAD TIES BURNETTIZED. 9 

in these species some parts impervious to injection, 
whilst it is almost impossible but that a certain por- 
tion of the fibres will be more or less incrusted. The 
sap woods, on the other hand, of every species ap- 
pear quite pervious. 

Very little is known of any preservative process 
adopted in ancient times. Pliny observes that the 
ancients used garlic boiled in vinegar with consider- 
able success, especially with reference to preserving 
timber from worms : he also states that the oil of 
cedar will protect any timber anointed with it from 
worm and rottenness. Oil of cedar was used by the 
ancient Egyptians for preserving their mummies. 
Tar and linseed oil were also recommended by him. 
The image of the goddess Diana, at Ephesus, was 
saturated with olive and cedar oils ; also the image 
of Jupiter, at Rome; and the statues of Minerva 
and Bacchus were impregnated with oil of spikenard. 

The idea of preserving wood by the action of oil 
is therefore by no means new; but it is somewhat 
curious that the earliest modern processes should 
also be by means of oil. The oils most proper to be 
used are linseed, rapeseed, or almost any of the 
vegetable fixed oils. Oak wood, rendered entirely 
free from moisture, and then immersed in linseed 
oil, is said to be thus prevented from splitting: the 
time of immersion depending on the size, &c. Palm 
oil is preferable to whale oil, because impregnation 
with the latter, although in many instances eligible, 
causes wood to become brittle. It is, however, prob- 
able that whale oil, when combined with other sub- 
stances, such as litharge, coal pitch, or charcoal, may 
lose much of that effect. As cocoa-nut oil, which is, 
under low temperature, like the oil expressed from 
the nuts of the palm tree, is known to be highly pre- 
servative of timber and metallic fastenings, we may 
expect the same result from the latter, and thereby 



10 BRIDGE TIMBER CREOSOTED. 

avoid that extreme dryness and brittleness of the 
timber which Mr. Strange complained of in the 
Venetian ships that had been seasoned for many 
years in frame under cover. Cocoa-nut oil beat up 
with shell lime or chunam, so as to become putty, 
and afterwards diluted with more oil, is used at 
Bombay and elsewhere as a preservative coat or 
varnish. to plank. It cannot become a varnish with- 
out the addition of some essential oil ; and the oil of 
mustard is used, which, of course, will produce the 
desired effect. In the first volume of the Abbe 
Raynal, on the European settlements in the East and 
West Indies, he mentions that an oil was exported 
from Pegu for the preservation of ships ; but as he 
does not say what oil, no conclusion can be drawn 
further than as to the probability of its being one of 
those already noticed. 

Experience has proved that even animal oils are 
so far injurious to timber as to render it brittle, 
whilst they preserve it from rottenness ; and that, on 
the other hand, a mineral salt more or less combined 
with fatty substances does not produce that effect. 
The staves of whale-oil casks become quite brittle, 
whilst those of beef, pork, and tallow barrels remain 
tough and sound. Ships constantly in the Greenland 
trade have their timbers and planks preserved so far 
as they have become impregnated with whale oil. 

Experiments with fish oil prove that of itself, 
unless exposed to sun and air, it may be injurious ; 
that it loosens the cohesion of timber ; but that 
animal fat, combined zvith saline matter, is preserv- 
ative. 

Fish oil used alone is ineligible, because capable 
of running into the putrefactive process, unless as 
a thin outside varnish. In hard, sound timber, it 
will hardly enter at all ; and if poured into bore- 
holes in the heads of timbers, it will insinuate itself 



FOUNDATION TIMBER CREOSOTED. 11 

into the smallest rents or cracks, and waste through 
them. Used alone, or with any admixture, it is 
absorbed and dried quickly on wood in a decom- 
posing state or commencing to be dry rotten. Used 
with litharge, it dries after some days ; but with 
lamp-black it has scarcely so much tendency to dry 
as when used alone. Paint of fish oil and charcoal 
drys very quickly where there is absorption, and the 
charcoal extends its oxidating or drying effect to the 
fish oil in its vicinity. 

We give the following to prove that we have 
written, and also to serve as an example for those 
who wish to try experiments :. — 

EXPERIMENTS ON FISH OIL. 

June 9. — Upon a piece of old oak scantling, with 
its alburnam on one side in a state of decay, fish oil 
was poured several times, viz. on this day, on June 
25, and July 3, which it rapidly absorbed in the 
decayed part. 

July 26. — It was payed (or mopped) with fish oil 
and charcoal powder, and the following day it was 
put under an inverted cask. 

October 1. — The end of this piece was covered 
with a greenish mould. This proves that fish oil 
must be injurious, except where exposed to sun and 
air to dry it. 

A compound of fixed oils and charcoal is liable 
to inflame, but as a thin covering or pigment it may 
not be so. 

The petroleum oil-wells, near Prome, in Burmah, 
have been in use from time immemorial. Wood, 
both for ship-building and house-building, is inva- 
riably saturated or coated with the product of those 
wells ; and it is stated that the result is entire im- 
munity from decay and the ravages of the white 
ant. At Marseilles, and some other ports in the 



12 PRESERVED WOOD PAVING BLOCKS. 

Mediterranean, it used to be the practice to run the 
petroleum, which is obtained near the banks of the 
Rhone, into the vacancies between the timbers of 
the vessels to give them durability. It was some- 
times for the conjoint purpose of giving stability and 
duration to vessels, mixed with coarse sand or other 
extraneous matters, and run in whilst hot between 
the ceiling and bottom plank, where it filled up the 
vacancies between the timbers in the round of their 
bottoms, excepting where necessary to be prevented. 
The great objection to the use of petroleum is its 
imflammability. Creosote, its great rival for wood 
preserving, is also inflammable, and not so agreeable 
in colour; but it is considerably cheaper, which is 
an important matter. 

As we are now about to enter upon the subject 
of patent processes, &c, it appears desirable to lay 
down certain principles at the commencement, in 
order to assist the reader as much as possible. 

Almost every chemical principle or compound of 
any plausibility has been suggested in the course of 
the last hundred and fifty years ; but the multiplic- 
ity and contradiction of opinions form nearly an 
inextricable labyrinth. To commence. 

ist. It seems obvious that the sooner the sap is 
wholly removed from the wood the better, provided 
the woody fibre solidifies without injury. 

2nd. That the wood should be impregnated with 
any strongly antiseptic and non-deliquescent matter 
which must necessarily be in solution when it enters 
the wood. No deliquescent remedy is eligible, be- 
cause moisture is injurious to metallic fastenings. 

3rd. The wood should be first dried, and its 
pores then closed with any substance impervious to 
air and moisture, and at the same time highly 
repellant to putrescency. The most essential req- 
uisites in a preservative of timber being a disposi- 



CREOSOTED PAVING BLOCKS. 13 

tion to dryness j and a tendency to resist combustion 
as far as consistently obtainable. 

4th. Any process to be successful ought not to be 
tedious, very difficult, or too expensive. These are 
important elements in the success of any patent. 

Very little is known of any preservative process 
previous to the year 171 7, when directions were 
given by the Navy authorities to boil treenails, 
and dry them before they were used. But whether 
the custom had prevailed before this time, or 
whether their strength and durability were in- 
creased by it, there are no means of ascertaining. 
It does not appear that any substance was put into 
the water to decompose the juices ; but as they are 
soluble in warm water, perhaps the power of vege- 
tation might have been destroyed without it. 

In 1737 Mr. Emerson patented a process of sat- 
urating timber with boiled oil, mixed with poisonous 
substances ; but his process was very little used. 
This, we believe, was the first patent on wood pre- 
serving. 

About 1740, Mr. Reid proposed to arrest decay 
by means of a certain vegetable acid (probably py- 
roligneous acid). The method of using it was by 
simple immersion. 

In 1756, Dr. Hales recommended that the planks 
at the water-line of ships should be soaked in lin- 
seed oil, to prevent the injury to which wood is sub- 
ject when alternately exposed to wet and dry; and 
indeed, many ships were built in which a hollow 
place was cut in one end of each beam or sternpost, 
which might constantly be kept filled with train 
oil. Amongst other ships so constructed, the 
' Fame/ 74, may be mentioned. When, after some 
years, this ship was repaired, it was found that as 
far as the oil had penetrated, namely, from 12 to 18 
inches from the end, the wood was quite sound, 



14 TELEGRAPH POLES BURNETTIZED. 

whilst the other parts were more or less decayed. 
The Americans used to hollow out the tops of their 
masts in the form of cups or basins ; bore holes 
from the end a considerable way down the masts ; 
pour oil into these ; cover them over with lead ; and 
leave the oil to find its way down the capillary vessel 
to the interior of the timber. 

In 1769, Mr. Jackson, a London chemist, with 
a view to the prevention of decay, obtained permis- 
sion to prepare some timber to be used in the nation- 
al yards, by immersing it in a solution of salt water, 
lime, muriate of soda, potash, salts, &c, the result 
of which dose was, that several frigates in the Navy 
subjected to the process were rendered more per- 
ishable than if they had been constructed of unpre- 
pared timber. The solution was filtered into the 
wood partly by means of holes made in it. Chap- 
man proposed a similar method of preserving the 
frames of ships, viz. by boring holes in the timbers, 
and pumping a solution of copperas in water into 
them. He believed every part of the vessel would 
thus be impregnated. 

Mr. Jackson also prepared the frame of the ship 
' Intrepid ' with another solution. The ship lasted 
many years. Bowden thought it was a solution of 
glue. Chapman suggested slaked lime, thinned 
with a weak solution of glue for mopping the tim- 
bers of a ship. 

Shortly after Mr. Jackson's process was started, 
Mr. Lewis attempted to accomplish the preserva- 
tion of timber by placing it surrounded by pounded 
lime, in spaces below the " surface of the earth." 
The use of lime has also been advocated by Mr. 
Knowles, Secretary of the Committee of Surveyors 
of the Navy, who has written an able work on the 
' Means to be Taken to Preserve the British Navy 
from Dry Rot' (1821). 



BRIDGE TIMBER BURNETTIZED. 15 

Between 1768 and 1773 a practice prevailed of 
saturating ships with common salt ; but this was 
found to cause a rapid corrosion of the iron fasten- 
ings, and to fill the vessels between decks with a 
constant damp vapour. In ' Nicholson's Journal/ 
No. 30, there is an article signed Nauticus on this 
subject. Vessel owners had long ago observed 
that those ships which have early sailed with car- 
goes of salt are not attacked by dry rot. Indeed, 
several instances are attested of vessels whose in- 
teriors were lined with fungi having all traces of 
the plant destroyed by accidental or intentional 
sinking in the sea. Acting on such hints, a trader 
of Boston, U. S., salted his ships with 500 bushels 
of the chloride, disposed as an interior lining, adding 
100 bushels at the end of two years. Such an addi- 
tion of dead weight is sufficient objection to a pro- 
cedure which has other great disadvantages. Salt 
should never be applied as an antidote against the 
dry rot, on account of its natural powers of attract- 
ing moisture from the atmosphere, which would ren- 
der apartments almost uninhabitable, from their 
continual dampness. Those who have lived for 
any length of time in a house at the sea-side, the 
mortar of which has been partly composed of sea 
sand, will have observed the moist state of the 
paper, plastering, &c, in wet weather. Bricks made 
with sea sand are objectionable. 

Salt water seasoning has already been referred 
to, but as it is so closely connected with salt 
seasoning, the further and final consideration 
of salt water seasoning may be fitly dealt 
with here. Salt water will not extract the 
juices from the timbe'r like fresh water. It is only 
by destroying the vegetation that salt water can be 
advantageous, but it would require a very long 
time to impregnate large timber to the heart so as 



16 DEALERS IN PILES AND POLES. 

to destroy vegetation. It is well known that wood 
is softened, and in time decomposed, by extreme 
moisture. Fifty years since, the master builder at 
Cronstadt complained that the oak from Casan, 
which was frequently wet from different causes in its 
passage of three years to Cronstadt, was so water- 
soaked as never to dry ; and also from the informa- 
tion of Mr. Strange, it appears " that the practice 
at Venice of the fresh-cut timber being thrown into 
salt water, prevents its ever becoming dry in the 
ships, and that the salt water rusted and corroded 
the iron bolts. " In fine, vessels built with salt 
water seasoned wood are perfect hygrometers, being 
as sensible to the changes of the moisture of the at- 
mosphere as lumps of rock salt, or the plaster of 
inside walls where sea sand has been used. 

In Ceylon, the timber of the female palm tree is 
much harder and blacker than that of the male, in- 
asmuch as its brings nearly triple its price. The 
natives are so well aware of the difference that they 
resort to the devise of immersing the male tree in 
salt zvater to deepen its colour, as well as add to its 
weight. 

Vessels impregnated with bay salt, or the large 
grained salt of Leamington or of Liverpool (pure 
muriate of soda), will possess decided advantages; 
as also will vessels that have been laden with salt- 
petre, if it has been dispersed amongst their timbers. 

Ships (the timbers of which have been previous- 
ly immersed in salt water) have been broken up 
after a few years' service, and the floor timbers 
taken out quite sound : but when exposed to the sun 
and rain in the summer months, their albumen has 
been in a decomposed or friable state. 

By the answers to queries given to Mr. Strange, 
the British Minister at Venice, in or about 1792, 
it appears that several of the Venetian ships of war 



PAVING BLOCKS FOR SALE. 17 

had then lain under sheds for fifty-nine years; some 
in bare frames, and others planked and caulked : 
that these ships show no outward marks of decay; 
but their timbers have shrunk much, and become 
brittle; that some of the most intelligent ship build- 
ers were of opinion that great prejudice had arisen 
from the prevalent custom of throwing the timber 
fresh cut into salt water, and letting it lie there 
until wanted ; that afterwards it dried, and withered 
on the outside, under the sheds, while the inside, 
being soaked with salt water, rotted before it be- 
came dry ; and this was one reason, amongst others, 
why Venetian ships, though built of good timber, 
lasted so short a time; for the salt moisture not 
only rots the inside of the beams and timbers, but 
of course rusts and corrodes the iron bolts. 

Salt water, sea-sand, and sea-weed are now used 
for seasoning " jarrah " wood in Western Australia. 
This wood is considered a first-class wood for ship- 
building, but it is somewhat slow to season, and if 
exposed before being seasoned it is apt to " fly " 
and cast. The method adopted is as follows : The 
logs are thrown into the sea, and left there for a few 
weeks ; they are then drawn up through the sand, 
and after being covered with sea-weed a few inches 
deep, are left to lie on the beach, care being taken 
to prevent the sun getting at their ends. The logs 
are then left for many months to season. When 
taken up they are cut into boards 7 inches wide, 
and stacked, so as to admit of a free circulation of 
air around them, for five or six months before using 
them. Sea-weed or sea-ware, cast upon the shores, 
contains a small quantity of carbonate of soda, and 
a large proportion of nitrogenous and saline mat- 
ters, with earthy salts, in a readily decomposable 
state. They also contain much soluble mucilage. 
The practice of seasoning timber by heating it in a 



18 SAWN TIMBERS CREOSOTED. 

sand bath was formerly adopted by the Dutch, and 
by the Russians in building boats. Mr. Thomas 
Nichols (in a letter to Lord Chatham, when First 
Lord of the Admiralty) states " that the same end, 
viz. preservation of timber from decay, might prob- 
ably be acquired by burying the timber in sand, 
which acts as an artificial sap," in the same manner 
as mentioned in Townsend's * Travels through 
Spain/ to be used with the masts of ships of war 
at Cadiz. 

Peat moss has been recommended (because the 
sulphates of iron, soda, and magnesia are found in 
it), but it failed when tried. 

With reference to Mr. Lewis's proposal to pre- 
serve wood by means of lime, it must be remembered 
that quicklime, with damp, has been found to ac- 
celerate putrefaction, in consequence of its extract- 
ing carbon; but when dry, and in such large quan- 
tities as to absorb all moisture from the wood, the 
wood is preserved, and the sap hardened. Vessels 
long in the lime trade have afforded proof of this 
fact ; and we have also examples in plastering-laths, 
which are generally found sound and good in places 
where they have been dry. Whitewash or lime- 
water has been strongly recommended for use be- 
tween the decks of ships, as being unfavourable to 
vegetation : it should be renewed at intervals of 
time, according to circumstances. It has been ap- 
plied with good effect to the joists and sleepers of 
kitchen floors ; but to be effectual it should be oc- 
casionally renewed. Effete, or re-carbonated lime, 
is injurious to timber, like other absorbent earths; 
so also are calcareous incrustations formed by the 
solution of lime in water, as appears from Von 
Rudb's ' Travels in Norway/ in which he says, "that 
in the fishing country (near Lofodden, beyond the 
Arctic circle) the calcareous incrustations brought 



PILES CREOSOTED. 19 

1>\ water, filtering through a bed of shells, soon 
cause the vessels and wood to be covered with and 
destroyed by green fungi." The ends of joists 
of timber inserted in walls are frequently found 
rotten ; and where not so, it may probably be owing 
to the mortar having been made with hot lime, and 
used immediately, or to the absence of moisture. 
It does not appear practicable to use limewater to 
any extent for preserving timber, because water 
holds in solution only about I -500th part of lime, 
which quantity would be too inconsiderable ; it, 
however, renders timber more durable, but at 
the same time very hard and difficult to be 
worked. 

Vessels constantly in the coal trade have gener- 
ally required little repair, and have lasted until in 
the common course of things they were lost by ship- 
wreck. This must be owing to the martial pyrites 
which abound in all coals ; and also from the sul- 
phuric acid arising from the quantity of coal dust 
which finds its way through the seams of the ceil- 
ing, and adheres to the timber and planks. 

In 1779, M. Pallas, in Russia, proposed to steep 
wood in sulphate of iron (green vitriol) until it had 
penetrated deeply, and then in lime to precipitate 
the vitriol. Neumann, in his first volume of 'Chem- 
istry/ on the article green vitriol, says, " That in 
the Swedish transactions this salt is recommended 
for preserving wood, particularly the wheels of car- 
riages, from decay. 

" When all the pieces are fit for being joined to- 
gether, they are directed to be boiled in a solution 
of vitriol for three or four hours, and then kept for 
some days in a warm place to dry. It is said that 
the wood by this preparation becomes so hard and 
compact that moisture cannot penetrate it, and that 
iron nails are not so apt to be destroyed in this vitri- 



20 SAWN TIMBERS BURNETTIZED. 

olated wood as might be expected, but last as long 
as the wood itself." 

In 1780 the marcasite termed by the miners mun- 
dic, found in great abundance in the tin mines in 
Devonshire and Cornwall, was employed, in a state 
of fusion, to eradicate present and to prevent the 
future growth of dry rot; but whether its efficacy 
was proved by time is not known. A garden walk 
where there are some pieces of mundic never has 
any weeds growing ; the rain that falls becomes im- 
pregnated with its qualities, and in flowing through 
the walk prevents vegetation. 

In 1796 Hales proposed to creosote the treenails 
of ships : this was forty-two years previous to 
BetheH's patent for creosoting wood. 

About the year 1800, the Society of Arts Build- 
ing in the Adelphi, London, being attacked by dry 
rot, Dr. Higgins examined the timbers, caused some 
to be removed and be replaced by new, and the re- 
mainder to be scraped and washed with a solution 
of caustic ammonia, so as by burning the surface of 
the wood to prevent the growth of fungi. 

At the commencement of the present century, a 
member of the Royal Academy of Stockholm called 
attention to the use of alum for preserving wood 
from fire. He says, in the Memoirs of that Acad- 
emy, " Having been within these few years to visit 
the alum mines of Loswers, in the province of Cal- 
mar, I took notice of some attempts to burn old 
staves of tubs and pails that had been used for the 
alum works. For this purpose they were thrown 
into the furnace, but those pieces of wood which had 
been penetrated by the alum did not burn, though 
they remained for a long time in the fire, where they 
only became red; however, at last they were con- 
sumed by the intenseness of the heat, but they 
yielded no flame." He concludes, from this experi- 



RAILROAD TIES CREOSOTED. 21 

ment, that wood or timber for the purpose of build- 
ing may be secured against the action of fire by 
letting it remain for some time in water wherein 
vitriol, alum, or any other salt has been dissolved 
which contains no inflammable parts. 

In Sir John Pringle's Tables of the antiseptic 
powers of different substances, he states alum to be 
thirty times stronger than sea-salt; and by the ex- 
periments of the author of the ' Essai pour servir 
a THistoire de la Putrefaction,' metallic salts are 
much more antiseptic than those with earthy bases. 

In 1815 it occurred to Mr. Wade that it would be 
a good practice to fill the pores of timber with alum- 
ine or selenite; but two years after, Chapman ob- 
served, " Impregnation of ships' timbers with a so- 
lution of alum occurred to me about twenty years 
since, because on immersion in sea-water the alum- 
ine would be deposited in the pores of the timber ; 
but I was soon informed of its worse than inutility, 
by learning that the experiment had been tried, and, 
in place of preserving, had caused the wood to rot 
speedily. Impregnation with selenite has been 
tried in elm water-pipes. On precipitation from its 
solvent it partially filled the pores, and hardened the 
wood, but occasioned speedy rottenness." If, by 
using a solution of alum to render wood uninflam- 
mable, we at the same time cause it to rot speedily, 
it becomes a question whether the remedy is not 
worse than the disease. Captain E. M. Shaw, of the 
London Fire Brigade, in his work, ' Fire Surveys ' 
(1872), recommends alum and water. Probably he 
only thought of fire, and not of rotting the wood. 
The alum question does not appear to be yet satis- 
factorily settled. 

While upon the subject of uninflammable wood, 
we may state that in 1848, upon Putney Heath (near 
London), by the roadside, stood an obelisk, to re- 



22 TELEGRAPH POLES CREOSOTED. 

cord the success of a discovery made in the last 
century of the means of building a house which no 
ordinary application of ignited combustibles could 
be made to consume : the obelisk was erected in 
1786. The inventor was Mr. David Hartley, to 
whom the House of Commons voted 2500/., to de- 
fray the expense of the experimental building, 
which stood about one hundred yards from the 
obelisk. The building was three stories high, and 
two rooms on a floor. In 1774, King George the 
Third and Queen Charlotte took their breakfast in 
one of the rooms, while in the apartment beneath 
fires were lighted on the floor, and various inflamma- 
ble materials were ignited to attest that the rooms 
above were fire-proof. Hartley's secret lay in the 
floors being double, and there being interposed be- 
tween the two boards sheets of laminated iron and 
copper, not thicker than stout paper, which rendered 
the floor air-tight and thereby intercepted the ascent 
of the heated air; so that, although the inferior boards 
were actually charred, the metal prevented the com- 
bustion taking place in the upper flooring. Six 
experiments were made by Mr. Hartley in this house 
in 1776, but we cannot ascertain any particulars 
about them, or any advantages which accrued to the 
public from the invention, although the Court of 
Common Council awarded him the freedom of the 
City of London for his successful experiments. 

In 1805 Mr. Maconochie proposed to saturate 
with resinous and oily matters inferior woods, and 
thus render them more lasting. This proposal was 
practically carried out in 181 1 by Mr. Lukin, who 
constructed a peculiar stove for the purpose of thus 
impregnating wood under the influence of an in- 
creased temperature. The scheme, however, had 
but very partial success, for either the heat was too 
low, and the wood was not thoroughly aired and 



RAILROAD TIES BURNETTIZED. 23 

seasoned, or it was too high and the wood was more 
or less scorched and burnt. Mr. Lukin buried 
wood in pulverized charcoal in a heated oven, but 
the fibres were afterwards discovered to have 
started from each other. He next erected a large 
kiln in Woolwich dockyard, capable of containing 
250 loads of timber, but an explosion took place on 
the first trial, before the process was complete, which 
proved fatal to six of the workmen, and wounded 
fourteen, two of whom shortly afterwards died. 
The explosion was like the shock of an earthquake. 
It demolished the wall of the dockyard, part of 
which was thrown to the distance of 250 feet ; an 
iron door weighing 280 lb. was driven to the dis- 
tance of 230 feet ; and other parts of the building- 
were borne in the air upwards of 300 feet. The 
experiment was not repeated. 

Mr. * Lukin was not so fortunate in 181 1 as in 
1808, for in the latter year he received a consider- 
able reward from the Government for what was 
considered a successful principle of ventilating hos- 
pital ships. 

In 181 5 Mr. Wade recommended the impregna- 
tion of timber with resinous and oleaginous matter 
(preferring linseed oil to whale oil) or with common 
resin dissolved in a lixivium of caustic alkali, and 
that the timber should afterwards be plunged into 
water acidulated with any cheap acid, or with alum 
in solution. He considered that timber impregnated 
with oil would not be disagreeable to rats, worms, 
cockroaches, &c, and that the contrary was the 
case with resin. He also recommended the impreg- 
nation of timber with sulphate of copper, zinc, or 
iron, rejecting deliquescent salts, as they corrode 
metals. 

In 181 5 Mr. Ambrose Boydon, of the Navy Of- 
fice strongly recommended that the timber, planks, 



24 BRIDGE TIMBER CREOSOTED. 

and treenails of ships should be first boiled in lime- 
water to correct the acid, and that they afterwards 
should be boiled in a thin solution of glue, by which 
means the pores of the wood would be filled with a 
hard substance insoluble by water, which would not 
only give the timbers durability, by preventing veg- 
etation, but increase their strength. Glue, he 
thought, might be used without limewater, or glue 
and limewater mixed together. 

In 1817 Mr. William Chapman published the 
result of various experiments he had made on wood 
with lime, soap, and alkaline and mineral salts. He 
recommended a solution of a pound of sulphate of 
copper or blue vitriol (at that time yd. per pound) 
dissolved in four ale gallons of rain water, and 
mopped on hot over all the infected parts, or thrown 
over them in a plentiful libation. He also recom- 
mended one ounce of corrosive sublimate (then 6s. 
per pound) to a gallon of rainwater applied in the 
same manner to the infected parts. For weather- 
boarded buildings he considered one or more coats 
of thin coal tar, combined with a small portion of 
palm oil, for the purpose of preventing their ten- 
dency to rend, to be a good preservative. 

Messrs. Wade, Boydon, and Chapman published 
works on dry rot about this time. 

In 1822 Mr. Oxford took out a patent for an 
improved method of preventing " decay of timber/' 
&c. The process proposed was as follows : " The 
essential oil of tar was first extracted by distillation, 
and at the same time saturated with chlorine gas. 
Proportions of oxide of lead, carbonate of lime, and 
carbon of purified coal tar well ground, were mixed 
with the oil, and the composition was then applied 
in thick coatings to the substances intended to be 
preserved. 

On 31st March, 1832, Mr. Kyan patented his 



FOUNDATION TIMBER CREOSOTED. 25 

process of corrosive sublimate (solution of the bi- 
chloride of mercury) for preventing dry rot; which 
process consisted as follows : A solution of the 
corrosive sublimate is first made, and the timber is 
placed in the tank. The wood is held down in 
such a way, that when immersed on the fluid being 
pumped in, it cannot rise, but is kept under the sur- 
face, there being beams to retain it in its place. 
There it is left for a week, after which the liquor is 
pumped off, and the wood is removed. This being 
done, the timber is dried, and said to be prepared. 
Sir Robert Smirke was one of the first to use timber 
prepared by Kyan, in some buildings in the Temple, 
London ; and he made some experiments on timber 
which had undergone Kyan's process. He says, 
" I took a certain number of pieces of wood cut 
from the same log of yellow pine, from poplar, and 
from the common Scotch fir; these pieces I placed 
first in a cesspool, into which the waters of the com- 
mon sewers discharged themselves ; they remained 
there six months ; they were then removed from 
thence, and placed in a hotbed of compost,under a 
garden-frame; they remained there a second six 
months ; they were afterwards put in a flower bor- 
der, placed half out of the ground, and I gave my 
gardener directions to water them whenever he 
watered the flowers ; they remained there a similar 
period of six months. I put them afterwards in a 
cellar where there was some dampness, and the air 
completely excluded; they remained there a fourth 
period of six months, and were afterwards put into 
a very wet cellar. Those pieces of wood which un- 
derwent Kyan's process are in the same state as 
when I first had them, and all the others to which 
the process had not been applied are more or less 
rotten, and the poplar is wholly destroyed. 

" I applied Kyan's process to yellow Canadian 



26 PRESERVED WOOD PAVING BLOCKS. 

pitie about throe years ago, and exposed that wood 
to the severest tests I could apply, and it remains 
uninjured, when any other timber (oak or Baltic 
wood) would certainly have decayed if exposed to 
the same trial, and not prepared in that manner. 

" As another example of the effect of the process, 
I may mention that about two years ago, in a base- 
ment story of some chambers in the Temple, London, 
the wood flooring and the wood lining of the walls 
were entirely decayed from the dampness of the 
ground and walls, and to repair it under such cir- 
cumstances was useless. As I found it extremely 
difficult to prevent the dampness, I recommended 
lining the walls and the floor with this prepared 
wood, which was done ; and about six weeks ago 
I took down part of it to examine whether any of 
the wood was injured, but it was found in as good 
a state as when first put up. I did not find the 
nails more liable to rust. 

" I have used Kyan's process in a very consider- 
able quantity of paling nearly three years ago ; that 
paling is now in quite as good a state as it was, 
though it is partly in the ground. It is yellow 
pine. Some that I put up the year before, without 
using Kyan's process (yellow pine), not fixed in 
the ground, but close upon it, is decayed. " 

This evidence, by such an experienced architect 
as the late Sir Robert Smirke was, is certainly of 
great value in favour of Kyan's process. 

The recorded evidence upon the efficiency of this 
mode of treating timber for its preservation is some- 
what contradictory. On the Great Western Rail- 
way 40,000 loads were prepared, at an expenditure 
of 1^4 lb. of sublimate to each load, the timber, 7 
inch, being immersed for a period of eight days, 
and the uniformity of the strength of the solution 
being constantly maintained by pumping. Some 



CREOSOTED PAVING BLOCKS. 27 

samples of this timber, after six years' use as 
sleepers on the railway, were found " as sound as 
on the day on which they were first put down/' 
This timber was prepared by simple immersion only, 
without exhaustion or pressure. Some of the 
sleepers on the London and Birmingham Railway, 
on the other hand, which had been Kyanized three 
years only, were found absolutely rotten, and Kyan's 
process was there consequently abandoned. 

This process is said to cost an additional ex- 
pense to the owner of from fifteen to twenty shill- 
ings per load of timber. Mr. Kyan at first used 
i lb. of the salt in 4 gallons of water, but it was 
found that the wood absorbed 4 or 5 lb. of this salt 
per load ; more w T ater was added to lessen the ex- 
pense, until the solution became so weak as in a 
great measure to lose its effect. 

Simple immersion being found imperfect as a 
means of injecting the sublimate, attempts were af- 
terwards made to improve the efficiency of the solu- 
tion by forcing it into the wood. Closed tanks 
were substituted for the open ones, and forcing 
pumps, &c, were added to the apparatus. The 
pressure applied equalled 100 lb. on the square 
inch. With this arrangement a solution was made 
use of having 1 lb. of the sublimate to 2 gallons 
of water; and it was found that three-fourths of 
this quantity sufficed for preparing one load of tim- 
ber. The timber was afterwards tested, and it 
was ascertained that the solution had penetrated to 
the heart of the logs. Mr. Thompson, the Secre- 
tary to Kyan's Company, stated, in March, 1842, 
that experience had proved " that the strength of 
the mixture should not be less than 1 lb. of sublimate 
to 15 gallons of water; and he had never found 
ain' well-authenticated instance of timber decaying 
when it had been properly prepared at that 



28 TELEGRAPH POLES BURNETTIZED. 

strength/' As much as i in 9 was not infrequently 
used. Kyan's process is now but very rarely used ; 
Messrs. Bethell, of King William Street, London, 
adopt it when requested by their customers. We 
have given the statements which have been made 
for and against this patent, but after a lapse of 
forty years it is difficult to reconcile conflicting 
statements. 

Although Mr. Kyan invented his process in 1832, 
Sir Humphrey Davy had previously used and rec- 
ommended to the Admiralty, and Navy Board, a 
weak solution of the same thing to be used as a 
wash where rot made its appearance: on giving 
his opinion upon Mr. Lukin's process, that eminent 
chemist observed " that he had found corrosive sub- 
limate highly antiseptic, and preservative of animal 
and vegetable substances, and therefore recom- 
mended rubbing the surface of the timber with a so- 
lution of it." In 1821 Mr. Knowles, of the Navy 
Office,referred to the use of corrosive sublimate for 
timber. In fact, it was used in 1705, in Provence 
(France), for preserving wood from beetles. Kyan, 
however, was the first to apply it to any extent. In 
the years 1833 to 1836, at the Arsenal, Woolwich, 
experiments were instituted, having for their ob- 
ject the establishing, or otherwise, the claims of 
Kyan's system ; the results of which were of a 
satisfactory nature. Dr. Faraday has stated that 
the combination of the materials used was not sim- 
ply mechanical but chemical ; and Captain Alderson, 
C.E., having experimented upon some specimens of 
ash and Christiana deal, found that the rigidity of 
the timber was enhanced, but its strength was in 
some measure impared; its specific gravity being 
also in some degree diminished. Kyan's process 
is said by some to render the wood brittle. 

Mr. Kyan considered that the commencement of 



BRIDGE TIMBER BURNETTIZED. 29 

rot might be stopped or prevented by the application 
of corrosive sublimate, in consequence of the chem- 
ical combination which takes place between the 
corrosive sublimate and those albuminous par- 
ticles which Berzelius and others of the highest 
authority consider to exist in and form the essence 
of wood; which, being the first parts to run 
to decay, cause others to decay with them. By 
seasoning timber in the ordinary way, the destruct- 
ive principle is dried, and under common circum- 
stances rendered inert. But when the timber is 
afterwards exposed to great moisture, &c. (the fer- 
mentative principle being soluble when merely 
dried), it will sometimes again be called into action. 
Kyan's process is said not only altogether to de- 
stroy this principle and render it inert, but, by mak- 
ing it solid and perfectly insoluble, to remove it 
from the action of moisture altogether. It thus 
loses its hygrometric properties, and, therefore, pre- 
pared or patent seasoned timber is not liable to those 
changes of atmosphere which affect that which is 
seasoned in the common way. All woods, including 
mahogany and the finest and most expensive wood, 
may be seasoned by Kyan's process in a very short 
space of time, instead of the months required by 
the ordinary methods. 

The reader will find a great deal about Kyan's 
system in the ' Quarterly Review/ April, 1833 ; and 
about proposals for using chloride of mercury for 
wood, 'Memoirs of the Academy of Dijon/ 1767; 
' Bull, des Sciences teen./ v. ii., 1824, Paris ; and 
1 Bull, de Pharm./ v. 6, 1814, Paris. 

It is well known that Canadian timber is much 
more liable to decay than that grown in the northern 
parts of Europe, and for this reason is never exten- 
sively used in buildings of a superior description. 
The principle of decay being destroyed by Kyan's 



30 DEALERS IN PILES AND POLES. 

process as above described, this objection no longer 
exists, and this kind of timber may therefore now be 
employed with as great security as that of a supe- 
rior quality and higher price. The same observa- 
tion applies with great force to timber of British 
growth, particularly to that of Scotland, much of 
which is considered as of little or no value for dura- 
ble purposes, on account of its extreme liability to 
decay, whether in exposed situations or otherwise. 
The process invented by Kyan might therefore 
render of considerable value plantations of larch, 
firs of all kinds, birch, elm, beech, ash, poplar, &c. 

Cost of process in 1832, 1/. per load of 50 cubic 
feet of timber. 

Mr. W. Inwood, the architect of St. Pancras 
Church, London, reported favourably of Kyan's 
process. On 22nd February, 1833, Professor Fara- 
day delivered a lecture at the Royal Institution, 
London, on Kyanizing timber; and on 17th April, 
T837, he reported that Kyan's process had not 
caused any rusting or oxidation of the iron in the 
ship ' Samuel Enderby,' after the ship had been 
subjected to this process, and had been on a three 
years' voyage to the South Sea fisheries ; and in the 
same year, viz. 1837, Dr. Dickson delivered a lec- 
ture at the Royal Institute of British Architects on 
dry rot, recommending Kyan's process. 

Five years after Mr. Kyan's invention, viz. in 
1837, a Mr. Flocton invented a process for prevent- 
ing decay, by saturating timber with wood-tar and 
acetate of iron, but little is known of this invention: 
we believe it was a failure. 

During the same year Mr. Flocton's process was 
made known, a Frenchman named Letellier recom- 
mended saturating timber in a solution of corro- 
sive sublimate, and when dry, into one of glue, size, 
&c. 



PAVING BLOCKS FOR SALE. 31 

During this year Mr. Margary took out his pa 
tent for applying sulphate of copper to wood. We 
propose to deseribe Margary's process further on : 
we do not think he received any medals for it. 

We now arrive at the modern creosoting process, 
which was brought to perfection by the late Mr. 
John Bethell. Air. Bethell's process of the creo- 
soting, or the injection of the heavy oil of tar, was 
first patented by him on July nth, 1838. It con- 
sists in impregnating the wood throughout with 
oil of tar, and other bituminous matters containing 
creosote, and also with pyrolignite of iron, which 
holds more creosote in solution than any other wat- 
ery menstruum. Creosote, now so extensively used 
in preserving wood, is obtained from coal tar, which, 
when submitted to distillation, is found to consist 
of pitch, essential oil (creosote), naphtha, ammonia, 
&c. In the application of the oil of tar for this 
purpose, it is now considered to be indispensable 
that the ammonia be got rid of ; otherwise the wood 
sometimes becomes brown and decays, as may be 
constantly seen in wood coated with the common oil 
tar. The kind of creosote preferred by continen- 
tal engineers and chemists, and also by the late Mr. 
John Bethell himself, is thick, and rich in naphtha- 
line. Some English chemists now seem to prefer 
the thinnest oil, which contains no naphthaline but 
a little more carbolic acid; the crude carbolic acid 
would vary from 5 to 15 per cent. : no engineer has 
ever required more than 5 per cent, of crude carbolic 
acid in creosote. The thinner oil appears to be 
more likely to be drawn out of the wood by the heat 
of the sun or absorption in powdery soil, and is more 
readily dissolved out by moisture. 

Mummies many thousands of years old have 
evidently been preserved on the creosoting princi- 
ple, and from observing the mummies the process of 



32 SAWN TIMBERS CREOSOTED. 

creosoting suggested itself to Mr. Bethell. The 
ancient Egyptians, whether from the peculiarity of 
their religious opinions, or from the desire to shun 
destruction and gain perpetuity even for their dead 
bodies, prepared the corpses of their deceased 
friends in a particular way, viz. by coagulating the 
albumen of the various fluids of the body by means 
of creosote, cedar oil, salt, and other substances, 
and also by excluding the air. How perfectly this 
method has preserved them the occasional opening 
of a mummy permits us to see. A good account of 
the operation is given in the chapter on mummies, 
in the second volume of Egyptian Antiquities in the 
' Library of Entertaining Knowledge.' 

Creosote has the same effect of coagulating the 
albumen, whilst it fills the pores of the wood with a 
bituminous asphaltic substance, which gives a water- 
proof covering to the fibre, prevents the absorption 
of water, and is obnoxious to animal life. 

In cases where the complete preservation of tim- 
ber is of vital importance, and expense not a consid- 
eration, the wood should be first subjected to Bur- 
nett's process, and then creosoted, by which means 
it would be nearly indestructible; the reason for 
this combined process being, that the albumen or 
sap absorbs the creosote more readily than the heart 
of the timber, which can, however, be penetrated by 
the solution of chloride of zinc. Mr. John Bethell's 
patent of 1853 recommends this in a rather improved 
form. He says the timber should first be injected 
with metallic salts, then dried in a drying-house, 
then creosoted. By this method, very considerable 
quantities both of metallic salt and creosote can be 
injected into timber. 

It has been stated that the elasticity of wood 
is increased by creosoting; the heartwood only de- 
cays by oxidation. 



PILES CREOSOTED. 33 

The wood should be dried previous to undergoing 
the process, as the sapwood, otherwise almost use- 
less, can be rendered serviceable, and for piles for 
marine work whole round timber should be used, 
because the sapwood is so much more readily satur- 
ated with the oil, and this prevents the worms from 
making an inroad into the heart. 

Mr. Bethell uses about 10 lb. of creosote per 
cubic foot of wood, and he does not allow a piece 
of timber to be sent from his works without being 
tested to ascertain if it has absorbed that amount, 
or an amount previously agreed upon. We mention 
the latter statement, because it is evident that all 
descriptions of wood cannot be made to imbibe the 
same amount. This process is chiefly used for pine 
timber: yellow pine should absorb about n lb. to 
the cubic foot, and Riga pine about 9 lb. The 
quantity of oil recommended by the patentee, engi- 
neers, and others, is from 8 to 10 lb. for land pur- 
poses, and about 12 lb. to the cubic foot for marine. 
In this country, for marine the quantity does not ex- 
ceed 12 lb. ; but on the Continent, in France, Bel- 
gium, and Holland, the quantity used is from 14 
to 22 lb. ( !■) per cubic foot. The specifications 
frequently issued by engineers for sleepers for for- 
eign railways describe them to be entirely of heart- 
wood, and then to be creosoted to the extent of 10 
lb. of the oil per cubic foot : this it is impossible to 
do, the value of the process being in the retention of 
the sapwood. 

It being ascertained a few years since that the 
centres of some sleepers were not impregnated with 
the fluid, after the sleeper had been creosoted to 
the extent of 10 lb. of creosote per cubic foot, Sir 
Macdonald Stephenson suggested, as a means of 
obviating that defect, the boring of two holes,. 1 
inch in diameter, through each sleeper longitudin- 



34 SAWN TIMBERS BURNETTIZED. 

ally, and impregnating* up to 12 lb. or 14 lb. per 
cubic foot. By that means the creosote would be 
sent all through the sleeper. The boring by hand 
would be an expensive process, but by machinery 
it might be effected at a comparatively small in- 
creased cost. 

During the last twenty-five years an enormous 
quantity of creosoted railway sleepers have been sent 
to India and other hot climates. The native woods 
are generally too hard for penetration. On the 
Great Indian Peninsular Railway, the native woods 
were so hard and close-grained that they could not 
be impregnated with any preservative substance, 
sal wood being principally used, into which creosote 
would not penetrate more than one quarter of an 
inch. As regards creosoting wood in India, it is 
moreover a costly process, owing to the difficulty 
and expense of conveying creosote from England ; 
iron tanks are necessary to hold the oil when on 
board ship, and, being unsaleable in India, add to 
the expense. 

English contractors often send piles to be creo- 
soted which have been taken from the timber docks. 
The large quantity of water they contain resists 
the entrance of the oil, and the result is that a great 
deal of timber is badly prepared because the con- 
tractors cannot obtain it dry. 

In the best creosoting works the tank or cylinder 
is about 6 feet diameter, and from 20 to 50 feet long. 
In some instances cylinders are open at both ends, 
and closed with iron doors, so that sleepers or tim- 
ber entered at one end, on being treated, can be de- 
livered finished at the opposite end ; but for all prac- 
tical purposes one open end is sufficient, as the oil 
when heated being of such a searching character it is 
a difficult matter to get the doors perfectly air-tight, 
consequently they are apt to leak during the time 



RAILROAD TIES CREOSOTED. 35 

the pressure is being applied. Pipes are led from the 
cylinder to the air and force pumps ; the air is not 
only extracted from the interior of the cylinder, but 
also from the pores of the timber. When a vacuum 
is made, the oil, which is contained in a tank below 
the cylinder, is allowed to rush in, and, as soon as 
the cylinder is full, the inlet pipe is shut and the 
pressure pumps started to force the oil into the 
wood; the pressure maintained is from 150 to 200 
lb. to the square inch, until the wood has absorbed 
the required quantity of oil, which is learned by an 
index gauge fixed to the working tank below. All 
cylinders are fitted with safety valves, which allow 7 
the oil not immediately absorbed to pass again into 
the tank. The oil is heated by coils of pipe placed 
in the tank, through which a current of steam is 
passed from end to end, raising the temperature 
to 120 . 

It is essential to observe that all methods of pro- 
tecting timber depend for their success upon the 
skilful and conscientious manner in which they are 
applied ; for, as they involve chemical actions on 
a large scale, their efficiency must depend upon the 
observance of the minute practical precautions re- 
quired to exclude any disturbing causes. In the 
case of creosoting : to distil the creosote, to draw 
the sap or other moisture from the wood, and sub- 
sequently to inject the creosote in a proper manner, 
it is necessary that the operations should be carried 
into effect under the supervision of experienced per- 
sons of high character. 

Mr. Bethell's process has been and still is being 
tested on the Indian railways. According to Dr. 
Cleghorn, it appears that many of the creosoted 
sleepers have, however, " been found decayed in the 
centre, the interior portion being scooped out, leav- 
ing nothing but a deceptive shell, in some instances 



36 TELEGRAPH POLES CREOSOTED. 

not more than y 2 inch in thickness," but he does 
not state whether the sleepers were prepared in 
England or India; because, if prepared in India, 
it is probable that some of the hard Indian woods, 
into which it is not possible to get creosote or any 
other preservative fluid, had been used. Mr. Burt, 
who has large timber-preserving works in London 
for creosoting, stated about eight years since, that 
after an experience of twenty years, during which 
time he had sent over one million and a half sleepers 
to India alone, besides having prepared many thous- 
and loads of timber for other purposes, he could 
safely assert that the instances of failure had been 
rare and isolated. 

A section of a piece of timber impregnated with 
creosote presents some curious and very distinctive 
characteristics, according to the duration of the 
process of injection and amount of tar injected. In 
every case the injected tar follows the lines and sinu- 
osities of the longitudinal fibres. When injected in 
sufficient quantity it fills the pores altogether ; when, 
on the contrary, the process has been incompletely 
performed, which, however, is generally sufficient, 
the tar accumulates in the transverse sections, and 
plugs the channels that give access to deleterious 
agents. 

The experiments made by M. Melseuns on oaken 
blocks exposed to the fumes of liquid ammonia show 
that the conservating fluids follow the precise course 
that would be taken by decay. In wood treated with 
creosote the tar acts on the very parts first exposed 
to injury, and on the course that would be taken by 
decay, which is thus rendered impossible. The 
methods of injection suggested by M. Melseuns in 
1845 did not answer equally well with every kind of 
wood. After trying wooden blocks in every sort of 
condition, dressed, and in the rough, green and dry, 



RAILROAD TIES BURNETTIZED. 37 

sound and decayed, M. Melseuns found that alder, 
birch, beech, hornbeam, and willow were easily and 
completely impregnated ; deal sometimes resisted the 
process, the innermost layers remaining white; 
poplar and oak offered a very great resistance — in- 
deed, with poplar it was found necessary to repeat 
the process. 

The decay of sleepers, prepared and unprepared, 
will often depend on their form. Three forms have 
been used: 1st, the-half-round sleeper, 10 inches by 
5 inches ; these are now almost universally used ; 
2nd, the triangular sleeper, about 12 inches wide on 
each side, used by Mr. Cubitt on the Dover line, but 
since abandoned ; and 3rd, the half square, 14 inches 
by 7 inches, used by Mr. Brunei and still in use. 
Mr. G. O. Maun, in reporting on the state of the 
sleepers of the Pernambuco Railway, states that fair 
average samples taken out on the 1st December, 1863 
(laid in 1857), show that the half-round inter- 
mediate sleeper is in the most perfect state of preser- 
vation; in fact, nearly as good as on the day it was 
put down; while the square-sawn or joint sleeper 
has not withstood the effects of the climate so well. 

The kind of ballast in which it will be most ad- 
visable to lay the sleeper is another important point 
to be attended to. About 12 miles of the Pernambuco 
Railway are entirely laid with creosoted sleepers, 
principally in white sand. In this description of bal- 
last the half-round sleepers have suffered, since the 
opening of the first section of the line in 1858 up to 
1866, a depreciation of not more than 1 per cent., 
whilst the square-sawn sleepers have experienced 
a depreciation of not less than 50 per cent. Had the 
latter been placed in wet cuttings with ballast re- 
tentive of moisture, no doubt the whole of them 
would have required to be renewed. Hence it is 
evident that fine open sand ballast, which allows a 



38 BRIDGE TIMBER CREOSOTED. 

free drainage during the rains, is best adapted for 
the preservation of sleepers in the tropics : it has 
also been found to be the best in most countries. 

The number of testimonials given in favour of 
creosote is very large, and are from the most eminent 
engineers of all countries, in addition to which Mr. 
Bethell has received several medals at international 
exhibitions. The English engineers include Messrs. 
•Brunei, Gregory, Abernethy, Ure, Hemans, Hawk- 
shaw, and Cudworth ; the French, MM. Molinos 
and Forestier; the Dutch, Messrs. Waldorp, Freem, 
and Von Baumhauer ; and the Belgian, M. Crepin. The 
late Mr. Brunei expressly stated that, in his opinion, 
well creosoted timbers would be found in a sound 
and serviceable condition at the expiration of forty 
years. M. Forestier, French engineer of La Vendee 
department, reporting to the juries of the French 
Exhibition of 1867, cites a number of experiments 
he has lately tried upon many pieces of creosoted 
and uncreosoted oak, elm, ash, Swedish, Norwegian, 
and Dantzic red fir, Norway white fir, plane, and 
poplar, and shows that in each case, except that of 
the poplar, the resistance of the wood both to bend- 
ing and crushing weight was much increased by 
creosoting. 

Drs. Brande, Ure, and Letheby, also bear testi- 
mony to the efficacy of this mode of preserving 
timber. 

Creosoting has been extensively employed upon 
all the principal railways in Great Britain. In Eng- 
land, upon the London and North Western, North 
Eastern, South Eastern, Great Western, &c. In 
Scotland, on the Caledonian, Great Northern, &c. 
In Ireland, on the Great Southern and Western, 
Midland, &c. It has also been and is being em- 
ployed in Belgium, Holland, France, Prussia, India, 
and America. 



FOUNDATION TIMBER CREOSOTED. 39 

Between the years 1838 and 1840, Sir William 
Burnett's (formerly Director-General of the Medical 
Department of the Navy) process was first made 
known to the public. 

This process consists of an injection of chloride 
of zinc into timber, in the proportion of about 1 lb. 
of the salt to about 9 or 10 gallons of water, forced 
into the wood under a pressure of 150 lb. per square 
inch. 

The late Professor Graham thus wrote of its effi- 
ciency : "After making* several experiments on wood 
prepared by the solution of chloride of zinc for the 
purpose of preservation, and having given the sub- 
ject my best consideration, I have come to the fol- 
lowing conclusions : 

" The wood appears to be fully and deeply pen- 
etrated by the metallic salt. I have found it in the 
centre of a large prepared block. 

: ' The salt, although very soluble, does not leave 
the wood easily when exposed to the weather, or 
buried in dry or damp earth. It does not come to 
the surface of the wood like the crystallizable salts. 
I have no doubt, indeed, that the greater part of the 
salts will remain in the wood for years, when em- 
ployed for railway sleepers or such purposes. This 
may be of material consequence when the wood is 
exposed to the attacks of insects, such as the white 
ant in India, which, I believe, would be repelled by 
the poisonous metallic salt. After being long mace- 
rated in cold water, or even boiled in water, thin 
chips of the prepared wood retain a sensible quantity 
of the oxide of zinc; which I confirmed by Mr. 
Toplis' test, and observed that the wood can be per- 
manently dyed from being charged with a metallic 
mordant. 

" I have no doubt, from repeated observations 
made during several years, of the valuable preserva- 



40 PRESERVED WOOD PAVING BLOCKS. 

tive qualities of the solution of chloride of zinc, as 
applied in Sir W. Burnett's process; and would 
refer its beneficial action chiefly to the small quantity 
of the metallic salt, which is permanently retained 
by the ligneous fibre in all circumstances of ex- 
posure. The oxide of zinc appears to alter and 
harden the fibre of the wood, and destroy the solu- 
bility, and prevent the tendency to decomposition of 
the azotised principles it contains by entering into 
chemical combination with them." 

The Report of the Jury, which was drawn up by 
the Count of Westphalia, at the Cologne Interna- 
tional Agricultural Exhibition, in 1865,- upon pre- 
pared specimens of timber, has the following re- 
marks on the chloride of zinc process : 

1st. That chloride of zinc is the only substance 
which thoroughly penetrates the timber, and 
is at the same time the best adapted for its 
preservation. 

2nd. That the process of impregnating the wood 
after cutting is more useful and rational than 
doing so while the tree is growing. 

3rd. That red beech is the only wood which has 
been impregnated in an uniform and thor- 
ough manner. 

It should, however, be stated that the Jury had 
very slender evidence presented to it respecting the 
creosoting process. The creosoted specimens had 
been impregnated under the pressure of 60 lb. to 
65 lb. per square inch for three or four hours, and 
were consequently inefficiently done ; in England 
the pressure per square inch would have been at 
least 140 lb. 

Drs. Brande and Cooper, of England, and Dr. 
Cleghorn, of India, also wrote favorably of Sir W. 
Burnett's process. 



CREOSOTED PAVING BLOCKS. 41 

In 1847 a powerful cylinder, of Burnett's con- 
struction, hermetically closed, was laid down adjoin- 
ing the sawmills in Woolwich dockyard. It was 
found to admit the largest description of timber for 
the purpose of having the moisture extracted, and 
the pores filled with chloride of zinc. Three speci- 
mens of wood — English oak, English elm, and 
Dantzic fir — remained uninjured in the fungus pit 
at Woolwich for five years ; while similar, but un- 
prepared specimens were all found more or less de- 
cayed. 

Although among the many attempts to preserve 
wood those in England have proved the most suc- 
cessful, it should be mentioned that France, Ger- 
many, and America have given much attention to 
the subject. 

At the end of the last century Du Hamel and 
Buffon pointed out the possibility of preserving 
wood, as well as the means of rendering it unalter- 
able. As early as 1758 Du Hamel made experiments 
on the vital suction of plants, and made some curious 
observations on the different rings of vegetable 
matter which absorb most liquid in different plants. 
He also tried the effect of vital suction and pressure 
(of gravitation) acting at the same time. His pro- 
cess was reviewed by Barral in 1842. 

About 1784 M. Migneron invented a process 
about which little is known, but the wood was 
covered with certain fatty substances. Wood nine 
years exposed to deterioration was improved by this 
process. M. Migneron had the approval of Buffon, 
Franklin, and the Academies. His invention was 
again brought into notice in 1807, when it was found 
that timber which had been prepared by it in 1784, 
and exposed more than twenty years, was quite 
sound. 

In 181 1 Cadet de Gassicourt made different kinds 



4 TELEGRAPH POLES BURNETTIZED. 

of wood imbibe vegetable and mineral substances, 
and certain unguents: he used metallic salts (iron, 
tin, &c). 

In 1813 M. Champy plunged wood into a bath of 
tallow at 334 , and kept it there two or three hours. 
His experiments were afterwards repeated by Mr. 
Payne. 

About the year 1832 it was proposed in America 
to apply pyroligneous acid to the surface of wood, or 
introduce it by fumigation. 

Biot (who has written an excellent life of Sir 
Isaac Newton) remarked, in 1834, that wood could 
be soaked by pressure ; but his process of penetrat- 
ing it with liquids was imperfect, and his discovery 
remains unapplied. 

A Frenchman, of the name of Breant, made about 
this time a discovery which preceded Boucherie's 
method, which is adopted to a great extent in France. 
Breant's apparatus consisted of a very ingenious 
machine, which, acting by pressure, caused liquids 
to penetrate to all points of a mass of wood of 
great diameter and considerable length. He may 
therefore be regarded as having solved the problem 
of penetration in a scientific, though not in a prac- 
tically applied, point of view. Dr. Boucherie testi- 
fied before the Academie des Sciences, in 1840, to 
the merit of Breant's invention, which, with modifi- 
cations by Payne, Brochanl, and Gemini, has been 
worked in France and England. This process was 
recommended by Payne in T840 and 1844, and im- 
itated by him in France, and later on by Vengat and 
Bauner, who used both an air pump and a forcing 
pump. Breant obtained three patents, viz. 1st, in 
183T, to act by pressure; 2nd, in 1837, by vital suc- 
tion ; and 3rd, in 1838, vacuum by steam. A mix- 
ture of linseed oil and resin succeeded best with him. 
He attached more importance to the thorough pene- 



BRIDGE TIMBER BURNETTIZED. M 

tration of the wood than to the choice of the pene- 
trating substances. He borrowed his process from 
Du Hamel, but to make the necessary suction in the 
pores he produces a partial vacuum in the impreg- 
nating cylinder by filling it with steam, and con- 
densing the steam. 

Previous to Boucherie's method, a German, 
Frantz Moll, in 1835, proposed to introduce into 
wood creosote in a state of vapour, but the process 
was found to be too expensive. This was a modifi- 
cation of Maconochie and Lukin's trials in 1805 and 
181 1. A similar process has since arisen in New 
York : we believe Mr. Renwick, of that place, sug- 
gested it. 

Such were the known labours when Dr. Bou- 
cherie, in December, 1837, devoted his time to a 
series of experiments upon timber, with a view to 
discover some preservative process which should 
answer the following requirements : First, for pro- 
tecting wood from dry rot or wet rot; second, for 
increasing its hardness ; third, for preserving and 
developing its flexibility and elasticity ; fourth, for 
preventing its decay, and the fissures that result 
from it, when, after having been used in construc- 
tion, it is left exposed to the variations of the atmos- 
phere; fifth, for giving it various and enduring 
colours and odours ; and sixth and last, for greatly 
reducing its inflammability. 

It is a curious coincidence that at Bordeaux, in 
1733, the Academy received a memoir relative to the 
circulation of the sap and coloured liquids in plants ; 
and it was at Bordeaux, a century afterwards, viz. 
1837, ^at M. Boucherie first mentioned his method. 

M. Boucherie's process was first discussed in Paris 
in June, 1840. It consists in causing a solution of 
sulphate of copper to penetrate to the interior of 
freshly cut woods, to preserve them from decay ; he 



44 DEALERS IN PILES AND POLES. 

occasionally used the chloride of calcium, the pyro- 
lignite of iron (pyrolignite brut de fer), prussiate of 
iron, prussiate of copper, and various other metallic 
salts. As a general rule sulphate of copper is used ; 
but when the hardness of the wood is desired to be 
increased, pyrolignite of iron is taken (i gallon of 
iron to 6 gallons of water) ; and when the object is 
to render the wood flexible, elastic, and at the same 
time uninflammable, chloride of calcium is used. 
The liquid is taken up by the tree either whilst grow- 
ing in the earth or immediately after it has been 
felled. Not more than two or three months should 
be allowed to elapse before the timber is operated 
upon, but the sooner it undergoes the process after 
being felled the better. 

Sulphate of copper is said to be superior to corro- 
sive sublimate. Dr. Boucherie's process of the in- 
jection of the wood with the salts of copper is as 
simple as it is easy. For those woods intended for 
poles it consists in plunging the base of a branch, 
furnished with leaves, into a tub containing the 
solution. The liquid ascends into the branches by 
the action of the leaves, and the wood is impregnated 
with the preservative salt. As for logs, the operation 
consists in cutting down the tree to be operated 
upon ; fixing at its base a plank, which is fixed by 
means of a screw placed in the centre, and which 
can be tightened at will when placed in the centre of 
the tree. This plank has, on the side to be applied 
to the bottom of the tree, a rather thick shield of 
leather, cloth, pasteboard, or some other substance, 
intended to establish a space between it and the 
wood, sufficient for the preserving fluid to keep in 
contact with the freshly cut surface of the tree. The 
liquid is brought there from a tub or other reservoir, 
by the help of a- slanting pole made on the upper 
surface of the tree, and in which is put a tube, 



PAVING BLOCKS FOR SALE. 45 

adapted at its other extremity to a spigot in the 
upper reservoir which contains the solution. A 
pressure of 5 metres suffices ; so that the instant the 
sap of the tree is drawn away it escapes, and is re- 
placed by the liquid saturated with sulphate of cop- 
per. The proportion of sulphate of copper in the 
solution should be 1 lb. of the salt to I2j4 gallons of 
water. As soon as the operation terminates (and it 
lasts for some hours for the most difficult logs), the 
wood is ready for use. 

For various practical reasons, the first invention 
of impregnating the wood of the tree whilst still in a 
growing state, causing it to suck up various solu- 
tions by means of the absorbing pow r er of the leaves 
themselves, was subsequently abandoned; and at 
the present time a cheap, simple, and effective pro- 
cess is adopted for impregnating the felled timbers 
with the preserving liquid, designated in France 
" trait de scie, et la cuisse foulante." The trunk of 
a newly felled tree is cut into a length suitable for 
two railway sleepers ; a cross cut is made on the 
prostrate timber to nearly nine-tenths of its diam- 
eter ; a wedge is then inserted, and a cord is wound 
round on the cut surface, leaving a shallow chamber 
in the centre, when it is then closed by withdrawing 
the wedge. A tube is then inserted through an 
auger hole into this chamber, and to this tube is 
attached an elastic connecting tube from a reservoir 
placed some 20 or 30 feet above the level on which 
the wood lies, and a stream of the saturating fluid 
with this pressure passes into the chamber, presses 
on the sap in the sap tubes, expels it at each end of 
the tree, and itself supplies its place. The fluid used 
is a solution of copper in water, in the proportion of 
10 or 12 per cent., and a chemical test that ascertains 
the pressure of the copper solution is applied at each 
end of the tree from which the sap exudes, by which 



46 SAWN TIMBERS CREOSOTED. 

the operator ascertains when the process is com- 
pleted. 

A full account of this process may be found in the 
number for June, 1840, of ' Les Annales de Chimie 
et de Physique.' Messrs. de Mirbel, Arago, Pou- 
celet, Andouin, Gambey, Boussingault, and Dumas, 
on the part of l'Academie des Sciences, made a re- 
port upon Dr. Boucherie's process, confirming the 
value of the invention. In France, Dr. Boucherie, 
some years since, relinquished his brevet, and threw 
the process open to the public, in consideration of a 
national reward ; whilst in England he has obtained 
two patents (1838 and 1841), which, however, are 
similar to Bethell's patent, obtained by him on July 
11, 1838: which is the same day and year of Bou- 
cherie' s patent. A prize medal was awarded for Dr. 
Boucherie's process at the Great Exhibition in Lon- 
don, in 185 1, and a grande medaille d'honneur, at 
the Paris Exhibition of 1855. Many thousands of 
railway sleepers have been prepared by this process, 
and laid down on the Great Northern Railway of 
France, and are at present perfectly sound, whilst 
others not prepared, on the same line, have rotted. 
Boucherie's process was used on Belgium railways 
up to 1859 ; and it is to be regretted that the reasons 
which led to its abandonment have not been given 
in the reports of the railway administration, as such 
reasons would have afforded reliable data for future 
experimentalists to go upon. 

Messrs. Lege and Fleury-Pironnet's patent for the 
injection of sulphate of copper into beech and 
poplar is as follows : After the wood is placed, and 
the opening hermetically sealed, a jet of steam is 
introduced, intended at first to enter the timber and 
open its pores for the purpose of obtaining a sudden 
vacuum, so as to establish at any time a communica- 
tion between the interior of the cylinder and the cold 



PILES CREOSOTED. 47 

water condenser; at the same time the air pump is 
put in action. The vacuum caused is very powerful, 
and is equal to 25^2 ins. of the barometer. Under 
the double influence of the heat and the vacuum the 
sap is quickly evaporated from the wood as steam, 
and ejected from the cylinder by the air pump, so 
that in a very short time the wood is fully prepared 
to admit the preserving liquid through the entire 
bulk. 

The use of sulphate of copper for preserving tim- 
ber has not been, however, confined to France, for 
about the time Dr. Boucherie brought forward his 
process, a Mr. Margary took out a patent in Eng- 
land for the use of the same material. His method 
consists in steeping the substances to be preserved 
in a solution of sulphate of copper, of the strength 
of 1 lb. of the sulphate to 8 gallons of water, and 
leaving them in it till thoroughly saturated. The 
timber is allowed to remain in the tank two days for 
every inch of its thickness. Another method is to 
place the timber in a closed iron vessel of great 
strength, and it is made to imbibe the solution by 
exhaustion and pressure, the operation occupying 
but a short time. 

Sulphate of copper is sold in quantities at 4J. 
per lb.; so that 100/. would buy 6000 lb., and each 
pound weight is sufficient for 7 or 8 gallons of water, 
according to Margary; or 12 gallons of water, ac- 
cording to Boucherie. 

To preserve railway sleepers, the French railway 
engineers require Y\ lb. of sulphate of copper per 
cubic foot, say at least 12 lbs. to the load of 50 feet, 
to be used in a 2 per cent, solution ; so that a load 
of timber can be rendered imperishable for the sum 
of- four shillings, exclusive of labour, if sulphate of 
copper be reckoned at 4^. per lb. 

With respect to the use of pyrolignite of iron, Mr. 



48 SAWN TIMBERS BURNETTIZED. 

Bethell considers it an expensive process, the pyro- 
lignite costing 6 d. to gd. per gallon, whilst the oil of 
tar can be delivered at from 2d. to 3d. per gallon : 
the cost of these materials is constantly varying. 

A great many sleepers were prepared on the Great 
Western Railway by pyrolignite of iron, and all have 
decayed. Their black colour makes them exactly 
resemble creosoted sleepers, and many mistakes have 
arisen from this resemblance. 

Messrs. Dorsett and Blythe's (of Bordeaux) 
patent process of preparing wood by the injection of 
heated solutions of sulphate of copper is said to have 
been adopted by French, Spanish, and Italian, as 
well as other continental railway companies, by the 
French Government for their navy and other con- 
structions, and by telegraph companies for poles on 
continental lines. It is as cheap as creosote, and is 
employed in places where creosote cannot be had. 
Wood prepared by it is rendered incombustible. 
Wood for outdoor purposes so prepared has a clean 
yellowish surface, without odour ; it requires no 
painting, remains unchangeable for any length of 
time, and can be employed for any purpose, the 
same as unprepared material, and carried with other 
cargo without hindrance. Messrs. Dorsett and 
Blythe's process is similar to that of Mr. Knab, 
which consisted of a solution of sulphate of copper, 
heated to nearly boiling point, and placed in a lead 
cylinder, protected by wood. 

In 1846, 80,000 sleepers, treated with sulphate of 
copper, were laid down on French railways, and 
after nine years' exposure were found to be as 
perfect as when first laid. 

Mr. H. W. Lewis, University of Michigan, U. S., 
thus writes in the 'Journal ' of the Franklin Institute, 
in 1866, with reference to the decay of American 
railway sleepers : "Allowing 21 12 sleepers per mile, 



RAILROAD TIES CREOSOTED. 49 

at 50 cents each, 1056 dols. per mile of American 
railroad decay every seven years. Thoroughly im- 
pregnate those sleepers with sulphate of copper, at 
a cost of 5 cents each, and they would last twice as 
long. Thus would be effected a saving of 880 dols. 
per mile in the seven years on sleepers alone. In the 
United States, there are 33,906.6 miles of railroad. 
The whole saving on these lines would be 29,389,- 
568 dols., or upwards of 4,262,795 dols. per annum." 

With reference to the decay of unprepared wooden 
sleepers, it may be here stated that the renewal of 
wooden sleepers on the Calcutta and Delhi Indian 
line alone costs annually 130,000/. 

The preservative action of sulphate of copper on 
wood has long been known, but there are several 
things in its action which require explanation. The 
' London Review ' says that Koenig has lately in- 
vestigated the chemical reactions which occur when 
wood is impregnated with a preservative solution of 
blue vitriol. He finds, as a general rule, that a 
certain quantity of basic sulphate of copper remains 
combined in the pores of the wood in such a manner 
that it cannot be washed out with water. The cop- 
per salt may be seen by its green colour in the spaces 
between the yearly rings in the less compact portions 
of the wood, that is to say, in those portions which 
contain the sap. Those varieties of wood which con- 
tain the most resin retain the largest amount of the 
copper salt — oak, for example, retaining but little of 
it. The ligneous fibre itself appears to have little or 
nothing to do with the fluxation of the copper salt, 
and indeed none whatever is retained in chemical 
combination, so that it cannot be washed out with 
water by pure cellulose. When wood, from which 
all resin has been extracted by boiling alcohol, is 
impregnated with sulphate of copper, it does not 
become coloured like the original resinous wood, 



50 TELEGRAPH POLES CREOSOTED. 

and the copper salt contained in it may be readily 
washed out with water. In like manner, from im- 
pregnated resinous wood all the copper salt may be 
removed with the resin, by means of alcohol. The 
constituents of the blue vitriol are consequently fixed 
in the wood by means of the resin which this con- 
tains. Further, it is found that the impregnated 
wood contains less nitrogen than that which is unim- 
pregnated, and that it is even possible to remove all 
the nitrogenous components of the wood by long- 
continued treatment with the solution of sulphate of 
copper ; the nitrogenous matters being soluble in an 
excess of this solution, just as the precipitate which 
forms when aqueous solutions of albumen and sul- 
phate of copper are mixed is soluble in excess of the 
latter. Since the nitrogenous matters are well 
known to be promoters of putrefaction, their re- 
moval readily accounts for the increased durability 
of the impregnated wood. The utility of blue vitriol 
as a preservative may also depend on a measure 
upon the resinous copper salt which is formed, by 
which the pores of the wood are more or less filled 
up, and the ligneous fibre covered, so that contact 
with the air is prevented, and the attack of insects 
hindered. It is suggested that those cases in which 
the anticipated benefits have not been realized in 
practice, by impregnating wood with a solution of 
blue vitriol, may probably be referred to the use of 
an insufficient amount of this agent ; that is, where 
the wood was not immersed in the solution for a 
sufficient length of time. The action should be one 
of lixiviation, not merely of absorption. 

In 1841, a German, named Miienzing, a chemist 
of Heibronn, proposed chloride of manganese 
(waste liquor in the manufacture of bleaching pow- 
der) as a preservative against dry rot in timber ; 
but his process has not been adopted in England, 
and very little noticed abroad. 



RAILROAD TIES BURNETTIZED. 51 

Tn July, 1841, Mr. Payne patented his invention 
for sulphate of iron in London ; and in June and 
November, 1846, in France; and in 1846 in London, 
for carbonate of soda. The materials employed in 
Payne's process are sulphate of iron and sulphate 
of lime, both being held in solution with water. 
The timber is placed in a cylinder in which a vacu- 
um is formed by the condensation of steam, as- 
sisted by air pumps ; a solution of sulphate of iron 
is then admitted into the vessel, which instantly 
insinuates itself into all the pores of the wood, pre- 
viously freed from air by the vacuum, and, after 
about a minute's exposure, impregnates its entire 
substance ; the sulphate of iron is then withdrawn, 
and another solution of sulphate of lime thrown in, 
which enters the substance of the wood in the same 
manner as the former solution, and the two salts 
react upon each other, and form two new combina- 
tions within the substance of the wood — muriate 
of iron, and muriate of lime. One of the most 
valuable properties of timber thus prepared is 
its perfect incombustibility; when exposed to the 
action of flame or strong heat, it simply smould- 
ers and emits no flame. We may also reasonably 
infer that with such a compound in its pores, decay 
must be greatly retarded, and the liability to worms 
lessened, if not prevented. The greatest drawback 
consists in the increased difficulty of working. This 
invention has been approved by the Commissioners 
of Woods and Forests, and has received much ap- 
probation from the architectural profession. Mr. 
Hawkshaw, C. E., considers that this process renders 
wood brittle. It was employed for rendering wood 
uninflammable in the Houses of Parliament (we 
presume, in the carcase, for steaming was used for 
the joiner's work), British Museum, and other pub- 
lic buildings ; and also for the Royal Stables at 
Claremont. 



52 BRIDGE TIMBER CREOSOTED. 

In 1842, Mr. Bethell stated before the Institute 
of Civil Engineers, London, that silicate of potash, 
or soluble glass, rendered wood uninflammable. 

In 1842, Professor Brande proposed corrosive 
sublimate in turpentine, or oil of tar, as a preserva- 
tive solution. 

In 1845, M r - Ransome suggested the application 
of silicate of soda, to be afterwards decomposed 
by an acid in the fibre of the wood ; and in 1846, 
Mr. Payne proposed soluble sulphides of the earth 
(barium sulphide, &c), to be also afterward decom- 
posed in the woods by acids. 

In 1855, a writer in the ' Builder ' suggested an 
equal mixture of alum and borax (biborate of soda) 
to be used for making wood uninflammable. We 
have no objection to the use of alum and borax 
to render wood uninflammable, providing it does not 
hurt the wood. 

Such are the principal patents, suggestions, and 
inventions, up to the year 1856; but there are many 
more which have been brought before the public, 
some of which we will now describe. 

Dr. Darwin, some years since, proposed absorp- 
tion, first, of lime water then of a weak solution of 
sulphuric acid, drying between the two, so as to 
to form a gypsum (sulphate of lime) in the pores 
of the wood, the latter to be previously well seas- 
oned, and when prepared to be used in a dry sit- 
uation. 

Dr. Parry has recommended a preparation com- 
posed of bees-wax, roll brimstone, and oil, in the 
proportion of 1, 2, and 3 ounces to ^ gallon of 
water; to be boiled together and laid on hot. 

Mr. Pritchard, C.E., of Shoreham, succeeded in 
establishing pyrolignite of iron and oil of tar as a 
preventive of dry rot; the pyrolignite to be used 



FOUNDATION TIMBER CREOSOTED. 53 

very pure, the oil applied afterwards, and to be per- 
fectly free from any particle of ammonia. 

Mr. Toplis recommends the introduction into the 
pores of the timber of a solution of sulphate or muri- 
ate of iron; the solution may be in the proportion 
of about 2 lb. of salt to 4 or 5 gallons of water. 

An invention has been lately patented by Mr. 
John Cullen, of the North London Railway, Bow, 
for preserving wood from decay. The inventor 
proposes to use a composition of coal-tar, lime, and 
charcoal; the charcoal to be reduced to a fine pow- 
der, and also the lime. These materials are to be well 
mixed, and subjected to heat, and the wood im- 
mersed therein. The impregnation of the wood 
with the composition may be materially aided by 
means of exhaustion and pressure. Wood thus 
prepared is considered to be proof against the at- 
tacks of the white ant. 

The process of preserving wood from decay in- 
vented by Mr. L. S. Robins, of New York, was pro- 
posed to be worked extensively by the " British 
Patent Wood 'Preserving Company." It consists 
in first removing the surface moisture, and then 
charging and saturating the wood with hot oleagin- 
ous vapours and compounds. As the Robins' pro- 
cess applies the preserving material in the form of 
vapour, the wood is left clean, and after a few hours' 
exposure to the air it is said to be fit to be handled 
for any purposes in which elegant workmanship 
is required. Neither science nor extraordinary 
skill is required in conducting the process, and the 
treatment under the patent is said to involve only 
a trifling expense. 

Reference has already been made to the use of 
petroleum. The almost unlimited supply of it with- 
in the last few years has opened out a new and al- 
most boundless source of wealth. An invention has 



54 PRESERVED WOOD PAVING BLOCKS. 

been patented in the name of Mr. A. Prince, which 
purports to be an improvement in the mode of pre- 
serving timber by the aid of petroleum. The in- 
vention consists, first, in the immersion of the 
timber in a suitable vessel or receptacle, and to ex- 
haust the air therefrom, by the ordinary means of 
preserving wood by saturation. The crude petro- 
leum is next conveyed into the vessel, and thereby 
caused to penetrate into every pore or interstice 
of the woody fibre, the effect being, it is said, to 
thoroughly preserve the wood from decay. He 
also proposes to mix any cheap mineral paint or 
pigment with crude petroleum to be used as a 
coating for the bottom of ships before the applica- 
tion of the sheathing, and also to all timber for 
building or other purposes. The composition is 
considered to render the timber indestructible, and 
to repel the attacks of insects. Without expressing 
any opinion on this patent as applied to wood for 
building purposes, we must again draw attention 
to the high inflammability of petroleum. 

The ' Journal ' of the Board of Arts and Manu- 
factures for Upper Canada considers the following 
to be the cheapest and the best mode of preserving 
timber in Canada: Let the timbers be placed in a 
drying chamber for a few hours, where they would 
be exposed to a temperature of about 200 , so as 
to drive out all moisture, and by heat, coagulate the 
albuminous substance, which is so productive of 
decay. Immediately upon being taken out of the 
drying chamber, they should be thrown into a tank 
containing crude petroleum. As the wood cools, 
the air in the pores will contract, and the petroleum 
occupy the place it filled. Such is the extraordin- 
ary attraction shown by this substance for dry sur- 
faces, that by the process called capillary attraction, 
it would gradually find its way into the interior of 



CREOSOTED PAVING BLOCKS. 55 

the largest pieces of timber, and effectually coat the 
walls and cells, and interstitial spaces. During the 
lapse of time, the petroleum would absorb oxygen, 
and become inspissated, and finally converted into 
bituminous substance, which would effectually 
shield the wood from destruction by the ordinary 
processes of decay. The process commends itself 
on account of its cheapness. A drying chamber 
might easily be constructed of sheet iron properly 
strengthened, and petroleum is very abundant and 
accessible. Immediately after the pieces of timber 
have been taken out of the petroleum vat, they should 
be sprinkled with wood ashes in order that a coating 
of this substance may adhere to the surface, and car- 
bonate of potash be absorbed to a small depth. The 
object of this is to render the surface incombustible; 
and dusting with wood ashes until quite dry will 
destroy this property to a certain extent. 

The woodwork of farm buildings in this country 
is sometimes subjected to the following: Take two 
parts of gas-tar, one part of pitch, one part half 
caustic lime and half common resin; mix and boil 
these well together, and put them on the wood quite 
hot. Apply two or three coats, and while the 
last coat is still warm, dash on it a quantity of well- 
washed sharp sand, previously prepared by being 
sifted through a sieve. The surface of the wood 
will then have a complete stone appearance, and 
may be durable. It is, of course, necessary, that the 
wood be perfectly dry, and one coat should be well 
hardened before the next coat is put on. It is neces- 
sary, by the use of lime and long boiling, to get 
quit of the ammonia of the tar, as it is considered to 
injure the wood. 

Mr. Abel, the eminent chemist to the War De- 
partment, recommends the application of silicate of 
soda in solution, for giving to wood, when applied 



56 TELEGRAPH POLES BURNETTIZED. 

to it like paint, a hard coating, which is durable 
for several years, and is also a considerable protec- 
tion against fire. The silicate of soda, which is 
prepared for use in the form of a thick syrup, is 
diluted in water in the proportion of i part by 
measure of the syrup to 4 parts of water, which is 
added slowly, until a perfect mixture is obtained 
by constant stirring. The wood is then washed 
over tzvo or three times with this liquid by means 
of an ordinary whitewash brush, so as to absorb as 
much of it as possible. When this first coating is 
nearly dry, the wood is painted over with another 
wash made by slaking good fat lime, diluted to the 
consistency of thick cream. Then, after the lime- 
wash has become moderately dry, another solution 
of the silicate of soda, in the proportion of 1 of 
soda to 2 of water, is applied in the same manner 
as the first coating. The preparation of the wood 
is then complete; but if the lime coating has been 
applied too quickly, the surface of the wood may be 
found, when quite dry, after the last coating of the 
silicate, to give off a little lime when rubbed with 
the hand ; in which case it should be once more 
coated over with a solution of the silicate of the 
same strength as in the first operation. If Mr. Abel 
had been an architect or builder, he would never 
have invented this process. What would the cost 
be? and would not a special clerk of the works 
be necessary to -carry out this method in practice? 

The following coating for piles and posts, to 
prevent them from rotting, has been recommended 
on account of its being economical, impermeable to 
water, and nearly as hard as stone: Take 50 parts 
of resin, 40 of finely powdered chalk, 300 parts of 
fine white sharp sand, 4 parts of linseed oil, 1 part 
of native red oxide of copper, and 1 part of sul- 
phuric acid. First, heat the resin, chalk, sand, and 



BRIDGE TIMBER BURNETTIZED. 57 

oil, in an iron boiler ; then add the oxide, and, with 
care, the acid; stir the composition carefully, and 
apply the coat while it is still hot. If it be not liquid 
enough, add a little more oil. This coating, when 
it is cold and dry, forms a varnish which is as hard 
as stone. 

Another method for fencing, gate-posts, garden 
stakes, and timber which is to be buried in the earth, 
may be mentioned. Take n lb. of blue vitriol (sul- 
phate of copper) and 20 quarts of water; dissolve 
the vitriol with boiling water, and then add the re- 
mainder of the water. The end of the wood is then 
to be put into the solution, and left to stand four or 
five days ; for shingle, three days will answer, and 
for posts, 6 inches square, ten days. Care should 
be taken that the saturation takes place in a well- 
pitched tank or keyed box, for the reason that any 
barrel will be shrunk by the operation so as to leak. 
Instead of expanding an old cask, as other liquids 
do, this shrinks it. This solution has also been 
used in dry rot cases, when the wood is only slightly 
affected. 

It will sometimes be found that when oak fenc- 
ing is put up new, and tarred or painted, a fungus 
will vegetate through the dressing, and the interior 
of the wood be rapidly destroyed; but when un- 
dressed it seems that the weather desiccates the gum 
or sap, and leaves only the woody fibre, and the 
fence lasts for many years. 

About fifteen years ago, Professor Crace Calvert, 
F.R.S., made an investigation for the Admiralty, 
of the qualities of the different woods used in ship- 
building. He found the goodness of teak to con- 
sist in the fact that it is highly charged with 
caoutchouc; and he considered that if the tannin 
be soaked out of a block of oak, it may then be inter- 
penetrated by a solution of caoutchouc, and thereby 
rendered as lasting as teak. 



58 DEALERS IN PILES AND POLES. 

We can only spare the space for a few words 
about" this method. 

ist. We have seen lead which has formed part 
of the gutter of a building previous to its being 
burnt down: lead melts at 612 F. ; caoutchouc at 
248 F. ; therefore caoutchouc would not prevent 
wood from being destroyed by fire. At 248 
caoutchouc is highly inflammable, burns with a 
white flame and much smoke. 

2nd. We are informed by a surgical bandage- 
maker of high repute, that caoutchouc, when used 
in elastic knee-caps, &c, will perish, if the articles 
are left in a drawer for two or three years. When 
hard, caoutchouc is brittle. 

Would it be advisable to interpenetrate oak with 
a solution of caoutchouc? In 1825, Mr. Hancock 
proposed a solution of i]/ 2 lb. of caoutchouc in 3 lb. 
of essential oil, to which was to be added 9 lb. of tar. 
Mr. Parkes, in 1843, an d M. Passez, in 1845, P ro ~ 
posed to dissolve caoutchouc in sulphur: painting 
or immersing the wood. Maconochie, in 1805, after 
his return from India, proposed distilled teak chips 
to be injected into fir woods. 

Although England has been active in endeavour- 
ing to discover the best and cheapest remedy for 
dry rot, France has also been active in the same 
direction. 

M. le Comte de Chassloup Lambat, Member of 
the late Imperial Senate of France, considers that, 
as sulphur is most prejudicial to all species of fungi, 
there might, perhaps, be some means of making it 
serviceable in the preservation of timber. We 
know with what success it is used in medicine. It 
is also known that coopers burn a sulphur 
match in old casks before using them — a practice 
which has evidently for its object the prevention 
of mustiness, often microscopic, which would im- 
part a bad flavour to the wine. 



PAVING BLOCKS FOR SALE. 59 

M. de Lapparent, late Inspector-General of Tim- 
ber for the French Navy, proposed to prevent the 
growth of fungi by the use of a paint having flour 
of sulphur as a basis, and linseed oil as an amalgam- 
ates In 1862 he proposed charring wood ; we have 
referred to this process in our last chapter (p. 96). 

The paint was to be composed of : 

Flour of sulphur 200 grammes 3,088 grains. 

Common linseed oil .... 135 grammes 2,084 grains. 
Prepared oil of mangan- 
ese 30 grammes 463 grains. 

He considered that by smearing here and there 
either the surfaces of the ribs of a ship, or below 
the ceiling, with this paint a slightly sulphurous at- 
mosphere will be developed in the hold, which will 
purify the air by destroying, at least in part, the 
sporules of the fungi. He has since stated that his 
anticipations have been fully realized. M. de Lap- 
parent also proposes to prevent the decay of timber 
by subjecting it to a skilful carbonization with com- 
mon inflammable coal gas. An experiment was 
made at Cherbourg, which was stated to be com- 
pletely successful. The cost is only about 10 cents 
per square yard of framing and planking. M. de 
Lapparent's gas method is useful for burning off 
old paint. We saw it in practice (April, 1875) 
at Waterloo Railway Station, London, and it ap- 
peared to be effective. 

At the suggestion of MM. Le Chatelier (Engi- 
neer-in-chief of mines) and Flachat, C.E/s, M. 
Ranee, a few years since, injected in a Lege and 
Fleury cylinder certain pieces of white fir, red fir, 
and pitch pine with chloride of sodium, which had 
been deprived of the manganesian salts it con- 
tained, to destroy its deliquescent property. Some 
pieces were injected four times, but the greatest 



60 SAWN TIMBERS CREOSOTED. 

amount of solution, injected into pitch pine heart- 
wood was from 3 to 4 per cent., and very little more 
was injected into the white and red fir heartwood. 
It was also noticed that sapwood, after being in- 
jected four times, only gained 8 per cent, in weight 
in the last three operations. The experiments made 
to test the relative incombustibility of the injected 
wood showed that the process was a complete fail- 
ure; the prepared wood burning as quickly as the 
unprepared wood. 

M. Paschal le Gros, of Paris, has patented his 
system for preserving all kinds of wood, by means 
of a double salt of manganese and of zinc, used 
either alone or with an admixture of creosote. The 
solution, obtained in either of the two ways, is 
poured into a trough, and the immersion of the logs 
or pieces of wood is effected by placing them verti- 
cally in the trough in such a manner that they are 
steeped in the liquid to about three-quarters of their 
length. The wood is thus subjected to the action 
of the solution during a length of time varying from 
twelve to forty-eight hours. The solution rises in 
the fibres of the wood, and impregnates them by the 
capillary force alone, without requiring any mechan- 
ical action. The timber is said to become incom- 
bustible, hard, and very lasting. 

M. Fontenay, C.E., in 1832, proposed to act upon 
the wood with what he designated metallic soap, 
which could be obtained from the residue in greas- 
ing boxes of carriages ; also from the acid remains 
of oil, suet, iron, and brass dust; all being melted 
together. In 1816 Chapman tried experiments with 
yellow soap; but to render it sufficiently fluid it 
required forty times its weight of water, in which 
the quantity of resinous matter and tallow would 
scarcely exceed i-8oth; therefore no greater portion 
of these substances could be left in the pores of the 
wood, which could produce little effect. 



PILES CREOSOTED. 61 

M. Letellier, in 1837, proposed to use deuto-chlo- 
ride of mercury as a preservative for wood. 

M. Dondeine's process was formerly used in 
France and Germany. It is a paint, consisting of 
many ingredients, the principal being linseed oil, 
resin, zvhite lead, vermilion, lard, and oxide of iron. 
All these are to be well mixed, and reduced by boil- 
ing to one-tenth, and then applied with a brush. 
If applied cold, a little varnish or turpentine to be 
added. 

Little is known in England of the inventions 
which have arisen in foreign countries not already 
mentioned. 

M. Szerelmey, a Hungarian, proposed, in 1868, 
potassa, lime, sulphuric acid, petroleum, &c, to pre- 
serve wood. 

In Germany, the following method is sometimes 
used for the preservation of wood : Mix 40 parts of 
chalk, 40 parts of resin, 4 of linseed oil; melting 
them together in an iron pot; then add I part of 
native oxide of copper, and afterwards, carefully, 
1 part of sulphuric acid. This mixture is applied 
while hot to the wood by means of a brush, and it 
soon becomes very hard. 

Mr. Cobley, of Meerholz, Hesse, has patented the 
following preparation : A strong solution of potash, 
baryta, lime, strontia, or any of their salts, are forced 
into the pores of timber in a close iron vessel by a 
pump. After this operation, the liquid is run off 
from the timber, and hydro-Huo-silicic acid is forced 
in, which, uniting with the salts in the timber, forms 
an insoluble compound capable of rendering the 
wood uninflammable. 

About the year 1800, Neils Nystrom, chemist, 
Norkopping, recommended a solution of sea salt and 
copperas, to be laid upon timber as hot as possible, 
to prevent rottenness or combustion. He also pro- 



62 SAWN TIMBERS BURNETTIZED. 

posed a solution of sulphate of iron, potash, alum, 
&c, to extinguish fires. 

M. Louis Vernet, Buenos Ayres, proposed to 
preserve timber from fire by the use of the follow- 
ing mixture: Take i lb. of arsenic, 6 lb. of alum, 
and 10 lb. of potash, in 40 gallons of water, and 
mix with oil, or any suitable tarry matters, and 
paint the timber with the solution. We have al- 
ready referred to the conflicting evidence respecting 
alum and water for wood : we can now state that 
Chapman's experiments proved that arsenic afforded 
no protection against dry rot. Experiments in 
Cornwall have proved that where arsenical ores 
have lain on the ground, vegetation will ensue in 
two or three years after the removal of the ore. 
If, therefore, alum or arsenic have no good effect 
on timber with respect to the dry rot, we think the 
use of both of them together would certainly be 
objectionable. 

The last we intend referring to is a composition 
frequently used in China, for preserving wood. 
Many buildings in the capital are painted with it. 
It is called Schoicao, and is made with 3 parts of 
blood deprived of its febrine, 4 parts of lime and a 
little alum, and 2 parts of liquid silicate of soda. 
It is sometimes used in Japan. 

It would be practically useless to quote any fur- 
ther remedies, and the reader is recommended to 
carefully study those quoted in this chapter, and of 
their utility to judge for himself, bearing in mind 
those principles which we have referred to before 
commencing to describe the patent processes. A 
large number of patents have been taken out in Eng- 
land for the preservation of wood by preservative 
processes, but only two are now in use, — that is, 
to any extent, — viz. Bethell's and Burnett's. Messrs. 
Bethell and Co. now impregnate timber with copper, 



RAILROAD TIES CREOSOTED. 63 

sitt c , corrosive sublimate, or creosote; the four best 
patents. 

For the non-professional reader we find we have 
three facts : 

ist. The most successful patentees have been 
Bethell and Burnett, in England ; and Boucherie, in 
France: all B's. 

2nd. The most successful patents have been 
knighted. Payne's patent was, we believe, used 
by Sirs R. Smirke and C. Barry; Kyan's, by Sir 
R. Smirke; Burnett's, by Sirs M. Peto, P. Roney, 
and H. Dryden; while Bethell's patent can claim 
Sir I. Brunei, and many other knights. We believe 
Dr. Boucherie received the Legion of Honour in 
France. 

3rd. There are only at the present time three 
timber-preserving works in London, and they are 
owned by Messrs. Bethell and Co., Sir F. Burnett 
and Co., and Messrs. Burt, Boulton, and Co. — all 
names commencing with the letter B. 

For the professional reader we find we have three 
hard facts : 

The most successful patents may be placed in 
three classes, and we give the key-note of their 
success. 

ist. One material and one application. — 
Creosote, Petroleum. Order — Ancient Egyptians, 
or Bethell's Burmese. 

2nd. TWO MATERIALS AND ONE APPLICATION. 

Chloride of zinc and water; sulphate of copper and 
water; corrosive sublimate and water. Order — 
Burnett, Boucherie, Kyan. 

3rd. TWO MATERIALS AND TWO APPLICATIONS. 

Sulphate of iron and water ; afterwards sulphate of 
lime and water. Payne. 

We thus observe there are twice three successful 
patent processes. 



64 TELEGRAPH POLES CREOSOTED. 

Any inventions which cannot be * brought under 
these three classes have had a short life; at least, 
we think so. 

The same remarks will apply to external appli- 
cations for wood — for instance, coal-tar, one appli- 
cation, is more used for fencing than any other 
material. 

We are much in want of a valuable series of ex- 
periments on the application of various chemicals 
on wood to resist burning to pieces; without caus- 
ing it to rot speedily. 



RAILROAD TIES BURNETTIZED. 65 



Headquarters Department of California, Of- 
fice of the Chief Quartermaster, San 
Francisco, Cal., June 26, 1896. 
P. F. Dundon, Esq., 

Dear Sir: In December, 1891, we repaired the 
Presidio wharf with standard piles w T hich had been 
treated with 12 pounds of creosote to the cubic foot, 
at the works of the Pacific Improvement Company, 
at Oakland Point, in November of the' same year. 
On the reconstruction of this wharf with wrought 
iron piles this spring (1896) these piles were 
pulled, and have since been cut up and used in re- 
pairs to the wharf at Alcatraz Island. A careful 
examination of the piles failed to show any signs 
of destruction from worms or other causes, except 
one pile which had been slightly attacked by the lim- 
noria. In the same wharf fender piles unprotected 
failed to last to exceed three years. 
Very respectfully yours, 

James H. Humphreys, C. E., 
Quartermaster's Dept, U. S. A. 



San Francisco, Cal., April 20, 1896. 
To the San Francisco Timber Preserving Co., 

225 Folsom Street, San Francisco, Cal. 
Gentlemen: The U. S. Life Saving Station has 
made use of creosoted lumber and piles on this 
Coast for a period extending over six years and the 
creosoted lumber for ways, and creosoted piles 
for foundation of same have resisted the teredo 
and limnoria, and have given perfect satisfaction, 
and we anticipate using creosoted lumber still fur- 
ther. The foundation and ways for the Life Sav- 
ing Station at Baker's Beach, this city, were creo- 
soted, and built in 1890. Yours truly, 

(Signed) T. J. Blakeney, 
Supt. 1 2th Life Saving District. 



66 BRIDGE TIMBER CREOSOTED. 

Thomson Bridge Company,, San Francisco, 
August 5, 1896. 

P. F. Dundon, Esq., 

Dear Sir : In reply to yours regarding creosoted 
piles, I would state that my experience with the same 
justifies me in earnestly recommending the use of 
the process to any party who desires to build a 
wharf where the teredo or limnoria exists. In July, 
1892, I commenced to build the Santa Monica wharf 
for the Pacific Improvement Co., and drove in that 
structure over 5,000 creosoted piles. A few months 
ago some 5 or 6 piles, broken from time to time, 
were replaced with new ones. Those broken piles 
were thoroughly examined, and all, with the ex- 
ception of one, were found to be entirely free from 
any worm — the one exception had evidently been 
broken when being driven, and it showed that the 
teredo had entered in the heart of the pile at the 
break and worked up about 6 or 8 inches, but had 
never touched or penetrated the outside, which had 
been impregnated with creosote. This examination 
I consider good of a very severe four years' test, 
as the locality is known to be one of the very worst 
on the Pacific Coast for the ravages of the teredo 
and limnoria. 

Respectfully, 

Thos. Thomson. 

P. S. — All of the original piles are still in this 
structure and sound at this date, Dec, 1902. 



Howard C. Holmes, Chief Engineer of the Board 
of State Harbor Commissioners, in his report for the 
two years, ending June 30, 1896, states: " Without 
doubt the creosoting process is the most valuable 



FOUNDATION TIMBER CREOSOTED. 67 

and efficient of all processes known for prolonging 
the life of timber. The process was invented in 
England about the time Kyanizing and the other 
metallic salt antiseptics came into use; it has sur- 
vived all other processes, and is used to a greater ex- 
tent than any other method, both in Europe and in 
this country." 



Transactions American Society of C. E., Vol. XIV., 
Jan.-Dec, 1885, Page 265. 

The American Society of Civil Engineers held an 
annual convention June 25, 1885. The following are 
extracts .of reports from a committee of its members 
who had been previously appointed to determine 
which methods of preserving timber against decay 
were most successful, and which were best adapted 
to the needs and current practice in this country. 
The subject had been most thoroughly investigated 
by this committee, and the reports, as presented, 
are based on the most reliable information which 
it has been possible to receive on this subject. They 
report that the process of creosoting timber for pre- 
servative purposes was invented and brought into 
use in 1838 by Mr. John Bethell, of England, and 
in 1853, in a discussion of a paper (by Mr. H. P. 
Burt) before the British Institution of Civil Engi- 
neers, he made the following among other remarks : 
" Experiment proved that oil of tar, or creosote, 
was perhaps the most powerful coagulator of albu- 
men (of wood), while it at the same time furnished 
a water-proof covering for the fiber, and its anti- 
septic properties prevented putrefaction. If, then, 
the operation of injection was well performed, there 
was every reason to anticipate the perfect success 
of the system. He found that by forcing at least 
seven pounds of creosote oil into each cubic foot of 



68 PRESERVED WOOD PAVING BLOCKS. 

timber the process was perfect for railway work, 
but for marine work it was better not to have less 
than ten pounds per cubic foot." Further on it 
states : " The best known engineers, such as Messrs. 
Brunei, Hawkshaw, Rendell and others, also gave 
on that occasion the results of their experience, 
which was in every case satisfactory when the work 
was thoroughly done, and creosoting has now be- 
come the standard mode of timber preservation in 
England. There is no question about its efficacy 
and economy when well done, as evidenced by the 
fact that out of twelve of the leading railways of 
Great Britain to whom M. Bogard, Secretary of 
this Society, addressed circulars of inquiry in 1878, 
10 used creosoted sleepers, and some of them for- 
warded with their answers sleepers taken from their 
tracks, which were yet sound and in use after 22 
years of exposure. As a protection against marine 
worms (the teredo navalis and limnoria terebrans) 
creosote is the only known preservative and if there 
be enough of it injected it is thoroughly efficient. 
All other substances which have been tried have 
failed, but the success of creosote has been estab- 
lished by abundant evidence all the world over. The 
treatment of timber by antiseptic methods has 
been acknowledged by some of the greatest engi- 
neers of this country to have been useful to the art 
of constructive engineering. It may be made even 
more useful in the future than it has been in the 
past. All that the advocates for its still more ex- 
tended development can desire to claim will be that 
their methods and investigations may be seriously 
examined, and from time to time decided upon, in 
accordance with the results which science and expe- 
rience may bring to light." 



CREOSOTED PAVING BLOCKS. 69 



Extract from " The Preservation of Timber by the 
Use of Antiseptics," by Samuel Bagster Boul- 
ton, Assoc, Inst. C. E., London, England. 

In 1848 a line of poles was erected from Fare- 
ham to Portsmouth, a distance of about 20 miles, 
and all the poles, three hundred and eighteen in 
number, were creosoted by Mr. Bethell. In 1861, 
he examined all of them in the situ, and only two 
showed the slightest trace of decay, and they had 
begun to decay at the top. In 1874, he had them 
again examined, and every pole was sound. Last 
year (1884) owing to the requirements of the ser- 
vice and the necessity of increasing the number of 
wires, the line of poles had to be taken down, and 
although they had been put up in 1848, they were 
as sound as when they were first erected. About 
the year 1861 the question of the proper mode of 
preserving timber was one of great consequence. 
The authorities were not satisfied as to which was 
the best, boucherizing or creosoting, and conse- 
quently on the Yeoril and Exeter line of the London 
and Southwestern Railway Co., the poles were put 
up alternately ; first, a plain pole, next a boucherized 
pole, and next a creosoted pole, the line extending 
about 40 miles. In 1870 he had them carefully ex- 
amined, and it was found that of the plain poles 
that had been up 10 years, not one existed all hav- 
ing decayed, while of the boucherized poles 30 per 
cent had gone, and of the creosoted poles not one 
had decayed. The result was that the Government 
has decided for years past to creosote all their poles. 



70 TELEGRAPH POLES BURNETTIZED. 



Extract from " The Preservation of Timber by the 
Use of Antiseptics" by Samuel Bagster Boid- 
ton, Assoc. Inst. C. E. y London, England. 

In 1867, Mr. Coisne obtained some creosoted 
sleepers which had successfully resisted decay dur- 
ing periods of from 18 to 20 years. The wood was 
crushed and the substances obtained therefrom 
tested. He found no tar acids ; if they had ever 
been there they were no longer present. He found, 
however, a quantity of naphthaline, also a quantity 
of oil which did not commence to distil until 230 
degs. Centrigrade (446 degs. Fahrenheit). In 1882 
the author caused some similar experiments to be 
made. Through the kindness of the authorities of 
the London and Northwestern Railway Co., 11 
pieces of old creosoted sleepers were sent from their 
permanent way. They had been in use for the 
following periods : 

1 specimen 16 years. 

1 specimen 17 years. 

2 specimens 20 years. 
2 specimens 22 years. 

1 specimen 28 years. 

2 specimens 29 years. 
1 specimen 30 years. 

1 specimen 32 years. 

Sleepers were also received from the Taff Vale 
Railway, the Southeastern Railway, and the Great 
Eastern Railway, which had been in use periods 
varying from fourteen to twenty-three years. A 
portion was also taken from a creosoted pale fence 
which had been fixed in the Victoria docks in 1855, 
and which is still in place, perfectly sound and 
strong after 29 years of use. 



BRIDGE TIMBER BURNETTIZED. 71 



Extract from " The Preservation of Timber by the 
Use of Antiseptics" by Samuel Bagster Boul- 
ton, Assoc. Inst. C. E., London, Eng. Trans- 
actions American Society of C. E., Vol. XIV., 
Jan.-Dec, 1885, Pages 274-75. 

Experiments Nos. 22, 23 and 24 illustrate the dif- 
ference between good and bad work. Creosoting 
works at Galveston, Texas, creosoted in 1874 some 
10,000 superficial feet of long leaf yellow pine pav- 
ing blocks. The result was not satisfactory. The 
blocks upon being examined in 1881 showed that 
the creosote had penetrated the wood for about 
Y% of an inch only, and the center was dozy. Some 
other blocks, however, furnished for a stable yard 
(Experiment No. 23) were of bastard, or loblolly 
pine, which in its ordinary condition is very perish- 
able wood. These, when examined in 1885, proved 
to be perfectly sound, and upon being split open 
were found to be creosoted to the center. The 
works above alluded to were principally estab- 
lished to creosote the -piles for the railroad bridge 
over Galveston Bay, which is some two miles long. 
This was in 1875 (Experiment No. 24). In 1882, 
Mr. Temple, the chief engineer, wrote: 

" About half of the piles have been renewed hav- 
ing been eaten by the teredo, caused evidently by 
dishonest creosoting for last year, upon taking 
out the foundation of the drawbridge for the pur- 
pose of replacing it with brick, it was discovered 
that only two piles had been attacked out of a se- 
lected lot of 74. The piles were loblolly pine, 
known in most Southern States as ' fox tail ' or 
' old field ' pine, the life of which, not treated, is 
about two years here." 



72 DEALERS IN PILES AND POLES. 



Transactions American Society of C. E., Vol. XIV., 
Jan.-Dcc, 1885, Pages 267-69. 

COMMENTS ON CREOSOTING EXPERIMENTS. 

The first experiment on the list, that on the 
Philadelphia and Reading R. R. in 1854, was not 
made with creosote at all, but with the coal tar 
from which it is extracted. Some 70,000 ties 
were prepared by first placing them in a large dry- 
ing chamber for 76 hours, at a temperature of 120 
degrees, then placing them for two hours in a bath 
of coal tar at a temperature of 150 degrees. Sub- 
sequently this was changed to the dipping of 2 feet 
at each end of the tie into the tar, so as to give the 
center a chance to part with any remaining moisture. 
The cost was eight cents a tie, but it was discon- 
tinued because it was not found to prolong their life. 
The committee has heard, in a somewhat vague 
way, of a good many other experiments with coal 
tar. None of them proved successful, except where 
seasoned fence posts or paving blocks had their 
lower ends dipped. This kept out the ground 
moisture while the wood could still dry out through 
the top. Whenever the whole stick was covered 
with coal tar, and the sap and moisture confined, 
the result was fermentation and failure, especially 
in those cases where the ammonia was not previous- 
ly removed from the tar by boiling. The second 
experiment (in 1865) was true creosoting. It was 
conducted under the instruction of Isaac Hinkley, 
Esq., then of Massachusetts, in the preparation of 
700 piles for the construction of a bridge over the 
Taunton River, on the Old Colony Railroad. Creo- 
soting works were erected for the purpose of treat- 
ing these piles, and these works are still in use at 
Somerset, Mass. In 1878, the Chief Engineer of 



PAVING BLOCKS FOR SALE. 73 

the Old Colony Railroad, the late E. N. Winslow, 
wrote as follows about these piles : 

" We have removed about 200 of the 700. The 
work was generally done with a rush, and in a care- 
less manner; many of the piles were fitted, knots 
trimmed up, etc., after they were creosoted. I 
find they are eaten in patches and spots commenc- 
ing apparently where the trimming was done. Up- 
on examination, I find the outer portion of the piles, 
fromj4 to ]/2 inch in thickness, filled with creosote, 
today as limpid and odorous as when applied. 
Hence, I infer the attack has been made in almost 
every instance where the trimming or fitting was 
done." The experiment was considered a success, 
and has been continued, but all trimming of timber 
after treatment destined to be exposed to sea water 
is now recognized here, and abroad, as fatal to suc- 
cess, inasmuch as the teredo will attack any point 
unprotected by sufficient creosote, and will speedily 
make his way to the heartwood, which, in conse- 
quence of its density, can absorb but a small portion 
of this preservative." 



Transactions American Society of C. E., Vol, XIV., 
Jan.-Dec, 1885, Page 289. 

SELECTION OF PRESERVING PROCESS. 

In view of the differing cost of the various anti- 
septics used, and of the price of timber in this coun- 
try, where it is still much cheaper than in Europe, we 
believe that the method to be selected for preserv- 
ing wood (if any) depends almost wholly upon its 
proposed subsequent exposure, and that it has been 
a mistake hitherto to look to a single process for all 
purposes. If the timber is to be exposed, in sea 
water, to the attacks of the teredo navilis and lim- 



74 SAWN TIMBERS CREOSOTED. 

noria terebrans, there is but one antiseptic 
which can be used with our present knowledge. 
This is creosote, or " dead oil," and the amount 
of it necessary depends upon the activity of the 
teredo, or rather upon the length of time during the 
year when the temperature of the water renders 
them active. 



Transactions American Society of C. E., Vol. XIV., 
Jan.-Dec, 1885, Pages 293-96. 

WILL IT PAY? 

The question whether it will pay to preserve tim- 
ber against decay seems to have been answered very 
positively in the affirmative in Europe. There 
seems to be indeed, no longer any question there 
about it ; preservation is looked upon as quite a mat- 
ter of course, and public works, which fail to avail 
of it, are alluded to as neglecting an important 
economy. In this country preservation of wood 
(except in an experimental way) has been the rare 
exception, but the time has probably arrived when 
in many sections an economy of 20 to 50 per cent 
a year can be obtained in the maintenance of timber 
structures and cross-ties by preparing them arti- 
ficially to resist decay, while in other sections tim- 
ber is still too cheap to warrant spending money to 
preserve it. This depends upon the price. Thus 
where a white oak tie costs 25c. and lasts eight years, 
if we spend 25c. more in preparing it so that it will 
last 16 years, we but double the life as well as the 
cost, and save only the expense of taking the old tie 
out and placing the new tie in the track at the end 
of the first 8 years, if the price of ties in the mean- 
while continues the same. If, however, the oak tie 
costs 75c. and we can substitute a hemlock tie, 
which would, unprepared last three and a half years, 



PILES CREOSOTED. 75 

and cost 30c. and by preparing it extend its life 
to 12 years at an additional cost of 25c. or even 
more, we then have a notable economy, both in 
first cost and in duration. In the case of piles 
which are cut off by the teredo in 1 or 2 years, as 
occurs in our Southern harbors, the case is plain. 
They must be creosoted, or great waste and in- 
creased expense will result. In cases where they 
last 8 to 10 years, as in some Northern sections, 
it will depend partly upon the value of the structure 
which the piles sustain whether it will pay to creo- 
sote them or not. In case of bridges and trestles, 
much will depend upon the exposure and cost of 
maintenance, as well as upon the proximate ex- 
haustion of suitable timber in the vicinity and upon 
contemplated permanent renewals, while in the case 
of buildings, platforms, floors, etc., the ordinary 
wear from traffic will also have to be taken into ac- 
count. The most important factor will be the ex- 
posure (wet or dry) and consequent rate of decay. 
Thus all brewers find it economical to preserve 
their floors; and mills, bleacheries, dye-houses, etc., 
largely resort to artificial preparation of timber 
because of their exposure to stopping of water and 
consequent moisture in heated apartments. The 
engineers and managers of the several works, there- 
fore, will have to figure up for themselves, in view of 
the local circumstances of their case and the present 
and prospective price of timber, whether the econo- 
my or artificial treatment is sufficiently attractive to 
induce them to resort to it. The great consumers 
of timber are the railroads, and the managers of 
such enterprises have to be governed by a good 
many considerations, both of finance and of expe- 
diency, besides those of eventual economy. Hither- 
to, aside from the past cheapness of timber, the 
principal objections to its preparation against de- 



76 SAWN TIMBERS BURNETTIZED. 

cay have been the lack of information as to what 
results could be confidently expected and the con- 
flicting claims of the promoters of various modes of 
treatment, each of whom represented his process 
as absolutely the best under all circumstances. The 
committee hopes that this report of the result of its 
investigations during the past five years will have 
done something toward removing the above-men- 
tioned obstacles to an important economy, but there 
still remains the objection that the results to be 
accomplished are somewhat remote, while the ex- 
penditure must be immediate. Railroad managers 
naturally want to obtain immediate returns. They 
do not like to burden the revenues of the current 
year for the benefit of future administrations, and 
they are with reason jealous of every dollar that 
goes out now, even if it promises to save 2 or 3 
dollars in the future; yet, now that close compe- 
tition requires every possible economy to be availed 
of, that railroads must more largely depend upon 
saving money in their maintenance, in order to con- 
tinue or to resume their dividend, and that com- 
panies in good standing can obtain new capital for 
expense saving appliances at four and one-half or 
five per cent a year, the time has probably arrived, 
in view of advancing prices and scarcity of timber, 
when some leading railroads will take steps to pre- 
serve it. Computations of the money saving to 
be effected will be found in Appendix No. 6, and in 
Appendix No. 17. In the former, Privy Councillor 
Funk estimates that in 1878, out of sixty millions 
of sleepers on the German railroads, twenty-five 
millions w r ere impregnated, and that even with the 
extraordinary length of life stated for unprepared 
ties (13.6 years for oak and 6.1 for fir and pine) 
had the remaining thirty-five millions of ties been 
impregnated, there would have been a resulting 



RAILROAD TIES CREOSOTED. 77 

economy of about one million dollars a year, or 
some thirty-three per cent, on the cost of renewals. 
This estimate is understood as having resulted in a 
material extension of tie-preserving in Germany, 
notwithstanding the fact that metallic ties have 
already been largely introduced in that country. As 
regards the latter, a simple calculation shows that 
(he time lias not yet arrived when they can profitably 
be introduced in this country. They will cost, laid 
in track, about $2.50 each, and were they to last 
forever (the estimated life in Germany is 20 to 40 
years) the interest on the cost at 5 per cent, would 
be 1 2 J/2 c. a year a tie, or more than the annual 
charge of an unprepared white oak tie, costing yj c. 
in the track, and lasting seven years. If, instead of 
13.6 years for oak, and 6.1 for fir and pine unpre- 
pared, which life is said to obtain in Germany (prob- 
ably in consequence of more thoroughly drained and 
ballasted roadbeds than our own), we assume a life 
of eight years for oak, and four for mountain pine 
and hemlock, as in better accord with experience 
in this country, we shall have the following compu- 
tations of economy upon the basis of Councillor 
Funk's paper, when oak sells at 50 c. and hemlock 
at 25c. : 

UNPREPARED TIES. 

Annual Charge 

15,000,000 oak @ 50 c ,....$7,500,000 -f- 8 $ 937,500 

20,000,000 hemlock ® 25 c 5,000,C00 -=- 4 1,250,000 

$2,187,500 

If it costs 25 c. each to impregnate them, we then 
have for lives of sixteen and twelve years : 

PRESERVED TIES. 

Annual Charge 

15,000,000 oak @ 75 c $11,250,000 ~- 16 $703,125 

20,000,000 hemlock @ 50 c 10,000,000 ~ 12 833,333 

$1,536,458 
Annual economy, $651,042. 



78 TELEGRAPH POLES CREOSOTED. 

When, however, the prices have advanced to 75 c. 
for the oak, and 30 c. for the hemlock, we have, with 
the same life and cost of preparation, the following 
comparison : 

UNPREPARED TIES. 

Annual Charge 

15,000,000 oak @ 75 c $11,250,000 -=- 8 $1,406,250 

20,000,000 hemlock @ 30 c 6,000,000 -v- 4 1,500,000 

$2,906,250 

PRESERVED TIES. 

Annual Charge 

15,000,000 oak @ $1 $15,000,000 -=- 16 $937,500 

20,000,000 hemlock @ 55 c 11,000,000 -=- 12 916,667 

$1,854,167 

Annual economy, $1,052,083. 

This illustrates how the economy of preservation 
increases as the price of ties advances. The above 
mode of calculation is not strictly accurate. It omits 
the interest account, which would increase the cost 
as against the prepared ties, and it also omits the 
cost of periodical renewals, which would increase the 
cost of the unprepared ties. Various methods have 
been employed for computing the economy of re- 
newable structures. Local conditions and consider- 
ations vary so much, and there are so many circum- 
stances which will force themselves into account that 
it is, perhaps, not wise to state any very definite rule 
in the premises. Your committee submits, however, 
three methods for such calculations in the appendix. 
Appendix No. 18 is an estimate of the economy of 
creosoting ties by M. E. R. Andrews of this com- 
mittee. Appendix No. 19 is an estimate of what 
increased life is necessary in order to justify a cer- 
tain rate of expenditure in preserving timber, by 
Mr. B. M. Harrod, also of this committee, and Ap- 
pendix No. 20 contains a formula for estimating the 
economy of various kinds of ties, furnished to your 
committee by an expert in such matters, the late 



RAILROAD TIES BURNETTIZED. 79 

Mr. Ashbel Welch, then president of this society, 
and who thus renders a last service to the society 
which regrets him still. 
Respectfully submitted, 

O. Chanute, 

B. M. Harrod, 

G. BOUSCAREN, 

E. A. Andrews, 
E. W. Bowditch, 

C. S. Smith, 

J. W. Putnam, 
G. H. Mendel, 
Fredric Graff, ex officio, 
Committee on the Preservation of Timber. 



Extract Transactions American Society C. E., Vol. 
XIV., Jan.-Dec, 1885, Page 303. Appendix 
No. 4. Burnettizing on Central Vermont R. R. 

St. Albans, Vt., April 28, 1882. 

O. Chanute, Esq., 

127 East Twenty-third Street, New York, N. Y. 

Dear Sir : In reply to your favor of the 25th inst. 
I would say that in 1856 this road erected works for 
the purpose of extracting sap from wood and of in- 
fusing chemicals for the purpose of preservation. It 
was in use some four years, but it was so much work 
to get through with such large quantities of timber 
as are used upon a railroad that it was thought best 
to abandon the work; therefore, the boilers and 
fixtures were removed and sold, and nothing more 
was thought of the " Burnettizing " process until 
some three years since, when an old side-track was 
removed, which had not been in use for several 
years, and which was nearly covered with earth and 
grass; still the hemlock ties were then found to 



80 BRIDGE TIMBER CREOSOTED. 

be nearly sound, having laid there for nearly twenty- 
five years. I did not keep watch of other prepared 
timber put in at that early time and as repairs are 
constantly going on upon a railroad, I am unable 
to say whether there are any similar cases upon our 
line or not, but there is no doubt that the preserva- 
tion of these ties was due to the process above 
named. The reason for abandoning the " Bur- 
nettizing " works upon this road would seem to be 
that the officers in charge at the time lost faith in 
the theory, and as it was an experiment, they did 
not learn of its value until recently discovered in 
the matter referred to. There is no question, in 
my opinion, regarding the value of the process. 
Yours very truly, j w h obart ^ 

General Superintendent. 



Extract Transactions American Society C. E., Vol. 
XIV., Jan.-Dcc, 1885, Page 318. 

SUMMARY OF SUNDRY TESTS AND INVESTIGATIONS. 

From the statements furnished above, as well as 
from other sources of information respecting the 
durability of the ties, we will gather in concise form 
the most important conclusions. 

1. The average life of unimpregnated ties on 
the German and Austrian railroads has been the 
following up to the present time : 

For oak ties 13.6 years. 

For fir ties 7.2 years. 

For pine ties 5.1 years. 

For beech ties ' 3.0 years. 

2. The average life of ties impregnated in a 
rational manner with creosote or chloride of zinc, 
under a powerful pressure, reaches : 



FOUNDATION TIMBER CREOSOTED. 81 

For oak ties 19.5 years. 

For fir ties 14 to 16 years. 

For pine ties 8 to 10 years. 

For beech ties 15 to 18 years. 

3. The average life of 831,341 pine ties on 13 
German railroads, impregnated on various systems, 
is calculated at 14.0 years. 



Extract Transactions American Society C. E., Vol. 
XIV., Jan.-Dec, 1885, Pages 323-324. Appen- 
dix No. 8. 

BURNETTIZING ON LEHIGH AND SUSQUEHANNA 
RAILROAD. " 

Brooklyn, April 24th, 1883. 

O. Chanute, Esq., Chairman Committee on Preser- 
vation of Timber. 
Dear Sir: Soon after receiving your circular 
asking for information regarding " preservation of 
timber," I went to Mauch Chunk, and calling upon 
Mr. Twining, Roadmaster of the L. & S. Division 
of the C. R. R. of New Jersey, he very kindly ac- 
companied me to a portion of his track in which 
were a quantity of burnettized ties which had been 
in the track since 1867 and 1868. The track on 
which these ties are laid runs along the river bank, 
and is in a side-cutting, in rock principally. The ties 
in question consist of maple, beech and hemlock. 
They were mixed indiscriminately with untreated 
ties, at the same time of laying, with one, two, and 
three in a place. With a few exceptions they have 
resisted decay almost perfectly. The rails have 
worn into them from ^ to }£ of an inch. The 
beech ties that were treated had stood well, show- 
ing very little, if any decay, but being straight- 



82 PRESERVED WOOD PAVING BLOCKS. 

grained they had in some cases split through the 
heart, beginning at one end, which was open one 
to three inches and extending half or two-thirds 
of the length of the stick. The effect of treatment 
upon the hemlock ties appeared to be the best of 
all. They were very hard to cut, dulling the knife, 
and where cut presented a glassy appearance. They 
were generally much harder and consequently less 
worn by the rail than any of the other woods. 
Most of the treated ties in the track appeared good 
for seven or eight years longer. A few of the 
treated ties had been taken out of the track and 
piled alongside but many of them apparently re- 
moved unnecessarily. In nearly all cases the under 
sides of these ties appeared like new timber. As an 
experiment, the value of the operation was greatly 
vitated by mixing these ties with the untreated ones 
in such a manner as to render it difficult to ascer- 
tain the effect of the treatment in promoting re- 
sistance to wear under the rail. I also examined 
some creosoted cypress ties which were laid in the 
track of the C. R. R. of N. J., near Round Brook 
Station, in the year 1876, several hundred feet of 
track being laid exclusively with ties thus treated. 
They are sound, very slightly worn, and will no 
doubt serve a good purpose for several years longer, 
probably 10 or 12 years. These ties can easily be 
found in the track, both from their blackened ap- 
pearance and by the odor. The Burnettized ties 
can be picked out from among the others by the 
somewhat weatherbeaten appearance of the surface, 
as well as from the fact that an end of each was 
stamped with figures showing at which date they 
were laid in the track. 

Respectfully yours, 

L. L. Buck. 



CREOSOTED PAVING BLOCKS. 83 



Extract Transactions American Society C. E., Vol. 
XIV., Jan.-Dec, 1885, Pages 333-339- Appen- 
dix No. 13. 

CREOSOTING ON NEW ORLEANS AND MOBILE R. R. 

New Orleans, La., June 20, '85. 
0. Chanute, Esq., Chairman Committee on Preserva- 
tion of Timber. 
Dear Sir : The line of railroad between New Or- 
leans and Mobile runs parellel to and near the Coast, 
crossing various arms of the sea, and so near the 
mouths of rivers that the tide ebbs and flows a 
considerable distance above the railroad crossings. 
The salt water flows over the bar at high tide, and 
at the ebb, the fresh water being lightest, flows over 
the top, leaving a basin of salt water in which the 
teredo navalis finds some of his choicest feeding 
grounds. As the tidal rise is only a foot or two 
the tidal currents are not very strong. It often 
happens that piles driven for these bridges will be 
honey-combed from 5 to 40 feet below the surface 
of the water, while not a sign of the teredo can be 
found at the surface. In the construction of the 
road the bridges over these waters were built of un- 
preserved piles and timber. Before the road had been 
fairly completed it was found that the piles were 
being rapidly destroyed by the teredo, and before 
trains had been running 6 mos. a part of the bridge 
over Bay Biloxi gave away, precipitating the loco- 
motive and part of the train of freight cars into the 
bay. Realizing that something must be done to 
protect the piles, and knowing of no methods of 
reliably treating them, it was decided to sheath 
them with metal. Between 4 and 5 thousand piles 
were sheathed, part with yellow metal, such as is 
used for covering ships' bottoms, and part with 



84 TELEGRAPH POLES BURNETTIZED. 

zinc with a layer of felt underneath. Four or five 
hundred were charred and oiled, and as this was 
less costly than covering with metal, more piles 
were thus treated subsequently. The zinc corroded 
rapidly, and in about 3 years there were many small 
holes through it. It served as a partial protection 
until the bridge was rebuilt with creosoted piles, 
eight years later. The felt underneath did good 
service after holes came in the zinc. The yellow 
metal was more durable and did not show many 
holes for six years. When taken off in eight years 
many sheets had lost all toughness and broke like 
plates of glass. The charred and oiled piles were 
about as durable as zinc. In charring timber, there 
are narrow lines or strips of clear wood between the 
coals, and into these as well as in the places where 
the coal gets chafed off, the marine animals enter. 
It appears that there is great difference in the dura- 
bility of metals in different waters, owing to the 
ingredients leached out of the earth and brought 
down by the streams. In some harbors sheet cop- 
per is reported good after 40 years' service, while 
in others it will be destroyed in 5 years. An out- 
line history of the use of timber on the New Orleans 
and Mobile Railroad will apply to most roads in the 
South that have used the same kinds of timber. A 
large amount of long-leafed yellow pine and quite 
a quantity of cypress was used in the construction 
of the road in the years 1869-70. In the year 1874 
extensive renewals were required. In 1875-76 
still more extensive renewals were demanded. The 
decay was so rapid, especially with the horizontal 
timber, that in the last bridges, rebuilt in 1879, 
probably not more than 5 per cent of the original 
pine stringers and caps remained. But some of 
these were sound and would probably have lasted 
2 or 3 years longer. Some of the timber which 



BRIDGE TIMBER BURNETTIZED. 85 

had been put in to replace that which first decayed 
had been so rotten as to require renewal. The cy- 
press was much better than the yellow pine, and es- 
timating from recollection, I think that not more 
than 25 per cent of the cypress had been removed on 
account of decay. Black cypress is the most 
compact, heavy and durable of any kind that I have 
used. The red comes next, while the white cypress 
is but little better than good yellow pine. For 
cross-ties it is not as good, except in straight track, 
being too soft to hold the spikes and rails. I 
•think through the Southern States, where there is 
a long, warm season favorable to fermentation and 
decay, yellow pine may be expected to last from 
5 to 10 years, and red and black cypress from 10 
to 20 for ordinary trestle bridge work, where kept 
up free from the ground. There is little timber 
other than pine and cypress suitable for bridge work 
in this section of the country. In 1875 ft was de- 
cided to rebuild all the bridges on the road with 
creosoted piles and timber, under the supervision of 
the writer, who had been investigating the subject 
for 2 or 3 years. Quite a number of parties were 
creosoting timber for various purposes, and at first 
it was thought practicable to contract with them 
for the required material. Examination of their 
products, and of the oldest cresoted work that could 
be properly done, convinced the writer that if creo- 
soting could properly be done, it would be good and 
effective; but if it could not be better done than 
any one was then doing, it had better be let alone. 
Paving blocks, planks and piles were being treated 
under various patents, but always with oil at a 
potency that would make glad the heart of a high 
dilution homeopathist. By their peculiar methods 
of doing business they drove from the field and al- 
most out of use the best and most durable kind of 



86 DEALERS IN PILES AND POLES. 

paving for driving and ordinary street wear that has 
ever been laid. It is noiseless and elastic under 
foot, so that horses can endure speed and service; 
it is not slippery and therefore safe. The result, 
the general suspension of creosoting, might have 
been anticipated. Wherever a piece of timber could 
be found which had been saturated with oil, it was 
perfectly sound, and these isolated specimens were 
the evidences that convinced him that creosote was 
a specific against decay and the ravages of marine 
animals if properly used. After a series of experi- 
ments plans were adopted differing considerably 
from anything in use. Works were constructed at 
West Pascagoula, Miss., and the work of recon- 
structing the bridges with creosoted piles and tim- 
ber commenced about the ist of March, 1876. The 
result of the first year's operations gave a consump- 
tion of 1.8 gallons of oil (equal to 15 or 16 lbs.) 
per cubic foot of timber treated. This included 
piles and sawn timber ; but piles will absorb more oil 
than hewn or sawn heart timber. Nearly all of the 
timber treated was long-leaf yellow pine. It included 
piles and timber for superstructure and waterways 
and culverts. Our opinion now is that for marine 
purposes not less than two gallons of oil should be 
used per cubic foot for yellow pine. For spongy, 
porous timber, a much larger amount will be re- 
quired to give an equally uniform and safe treat- 
ment. For fresh water or dry land work a less 
quantity will give good results, but the amount 
should be proportioned to the kind of timber used, 
solid, compact timber requiring the least. Timber 
should be heated through to above 212 degs. Fahr- 
enheit (whether drv or green) and have the air and 
moisture exhausted, and in that condition receive 
the oil. We did not gauge ourselves to any given 
quantity of oil per cubic foot, but endeavored to 



PAVING BLOCKS FOR SALE. 87 

make the work as thorough as practicable. We did 
not thoroughly saturate through the piles or sawn 
timber, and I do not think any process is known 
whereby solid, compact timber of large size can be 
thoroughly saturated by a I or 2 days' treatment. 
The bridge over Chef Menteur was the first to be 
rebuilt of creosoted timber, and this was done dur- 
ing the months of March, April and May, 1876. 
It is an iron truss, with spans of no feet, resting 
on pile piers of 16 piles each, each pile capped with 
a cast-iron socket, and the whole surmounted by a 
wrought girder pier-head upon which the truss 
rests. The stringers, cross-ties and guard-rails are 
of wood. All the woodwork of bridge, including piles, 
was as thoroughly creosoted as practicable, having 
an average of nearly 2 gallons of creosote oil per 
cubic foot. The bridges over the mouths of the 
Pascagoula river were next built in the months of 
May, June and July, upon the same plan. During 
the summer of 1876 several small structures, cul- 
verts and waterways were built entirely of creosoted 
timber, and also a sheet piling revetment along the 
sides of the embankments, across Lake Catharine, 
which is nearly a half mile long. This revetment 
was built of creosoted inch plank, driven double, 
so as to break joints, and bearing against a wale 
plank or stringer,supported by piles on the outside. 
During the following winter the bridge across the 
Great Rigolets, nearly ^4 of a mile long, was built. 
The piles in these structures are subject to the at- 
tacks of the teredo navalis, especially those at the 
crossing of Pascagoula river, where piles a foot and 
a half in diameter have been cut off by the teredo in 
a single year. During the summer of 1877 no creo- 
soting was done, but during the fall, winter and 
spring following a great number of waterways and 
trestles, and the bridge over Pearl river were built. 



88 SAWN TIMBERS CREOSOTED. 

The water in these large streams is from 15 to 45 
feet deep, and piles were used from 40 to 95 feet 
long. During the month of June, 1885, I examined 
the bridges built 9 years ago. I bored a great num- 
ber of cross-ties, stringer timbers and piles (always 
plugging the holes with a creosoted pine) selecting 
such as I thought most likely to show signs of decay, 
if any existed. Every piece of timber was in per- 
fect order, the wood inside the line blackened by the 
oil being as clean and bright as when cut. The piles 
showed no indication of having been cut by the tere- 
do. Another suspension of creosoting occurred dur- 
ing the yellow fever epidemic of 1878. The work 
of construction was carried on during the winter 
following and finished during the summer of 1879, 
by the rebuilding across Bay Biloxi, one and one- 
fourth miles long, and across Bay St. Louis, two 
miles long. The deepest water here is about 15 
feet, but the bottom is so soft as to require piles 
from 40 to 70 feet long. Since then no organiza- 
tion for bridge work has been necessary on the road, 
as the bridges are in perfect line and surface. The 
sandy country through which the road runs makes 
absolutely tight culverts or water-ways necessary. 
These have been built of creosoted timber and placed 
in the bank so as to allow a covering of earth of 
from 10 to 30 feet high, piles were driven, capped 
enough these were constructed by using plank or 
timbers set edgewise, and running across the road- 
bed. They were floored by plank extending into 
the bank outside the culvert walls about a foot, and 
covered by plank with a thickness corresponding 
to the width of the opening. The openings vary 
from 1 to 12 feet in width, and from 1 to 6 feet 
high. They have one or more openings to suit the 
volume of water to be discharged. Where the 
ground was soft the piles were driven and capped 



• PILES CREOSOTED. 89 

and floored over, and the sides built of double 
sheet piling plank I inch thick, and driven to a 
depth to guard against washing out. For larger 
streams, from 50 to 600 feet wide, and the track 
from 10 to 30 feet high piles were driven, capped 
and floored over and covered with sand or gravel 
about a foot in depth, and in this was laid the or- 
dinary embankment cross-ties to be lined and sur- 
faced by the trackmen. This makes a cheap (and 
we think durable) viaduct, and does away with the 
jump or bouncing motion so often felt in passing 
open waterways or trestles, and protects from fire. 
I do not think creosoted timber half so liable to take 
fire as timber in the natural state. 

Since then a wharf has been built at Ship Island, 
a foundation put under the light house at Horn Is- 
land, and several pieces of work put in on the Mo- 
bile and Montgomery R. R., and a wharf at the 
Mobile depot. Wharves have been built extensive- 
ly in the Bay of. Pensacola, and railroad bridges on 
the Pensacola and Atlantic R. R. Several thousand 
creosoted piles are in the waters of Pensacola Bay, 
where the teredo is very destructive to timber. We 
have used a larger amount of oil per cubic foot of 
timber treated than has generally been considered 
necessary, but the almost universally satisfactory re- 
sults confirm us in the opinion that creosoting is 
valuable in proportion to the amount of oil injected, 
and wherever a piece of timber decays or is de- 
stroyed by marine animals, it may be set down as a 
fact that there has been improper treatment. The 
most carefully conducted experiments indicate that 
there is no decay without fermentation, and no fer- 
mentation without germs. If a piece of timber be 
cut green and thoroughly coated with paint, it will 
soon be destroyed by what is called dry rot. If a 
similar piece be heated through to 225 degrees 



90 SAWN TIMBERS BURNETTIZED. 

Fahrenheit, and a sufficient amount of oil be forced 
in to form an impervious coating, no decay will 
take place until that coating is broken. Wherever 
that coating is broken and the air, with its dust, 
allowed to come in contact with the unsaturated 
wood, decay follows, and extends in each direction 
from the opening. It does not affect the whole 
mass of untreated timber at once, but commences at 
the opening and extends gradually, and it may be 
years in consuming all of the uncreosoted wood. 
If absolutely necessary to cut the timber after creo- 
soting, such surfaces should be thoroughly oiled 
and pitched, or in some other manner protected. I 
do not think that the " coagulation of the albumen " 
is much of a factor in the preservation of wood. 
Something else must be relied on as an antiseptic. 
The character of the wood seems to be so changed 
by saturation with creosote oil that the ferment 
germ finds no nourishment, and though the oil may 
have become as thoroughly dried out as possible, 
no fermentation or decay takes place. By the cour- 
tesy of the General Mgr. of the Old Colony R. R., 
I have just been enabled to examine the bridge 
built over the Taunton river, at Somerset, in 1865. 
It was referred to by Chief Engineer Winslow in 
1878. Nearly all the original 700 piles creosoted 
have disappeared or have had another driven along- 
side and are still left bolted in the bridge. Evident- 
ly the work was done in what we should now call a 
very superficial manner. The original " Bethell 
process " was used, depending solely upon pressure 
to force in the oil, and with no provision for ex- 
tracting the sap, except the traditional vacuum 
pump. Water cannot be drawn out of timber by 
simply producing a vacuum in the tank containing 
it. It is not forced in by atmospheric pressure, 
but by capillary attraction, which remains the same 



RAILROAD TIES CREOSOTED. 91 

after the air has been exhausted. Neither can it be 
removed by ordinary steaming, as that only carries 
more moisture to the wood. The piles were green 
and generally treated with the bark on. In creosot- 
ing the greater part of the oil is absorbed through 
the side of the timber, and not by flowing along the 
pores. The bark, being spongy, absorbed more oil 
than the green wood, and acting as a strainer, re- 
tained the densest and best part of it. When, there- 
fore, the bark fell off, which it was sure to do, the 
piles were left poorly protected. That part of the 
pile which received oil 20 years ago is as sound as 
when cut, though the interior may be rotten. The 
piles apparently -have lasted much longer than they 
would Lad they not been creosoted. A few piles 
were used around a draw-bridge that were not creo- 
soted. The bark was relied upon for protection, 
and in places where the bark was off or where 
trimming was done, nails were driven in near to- 
gether, and I think, a cloth or something of that 
kind was laid on the wood, though I could not as- 
certain positively. At any rate all such places that 
I saw, which had been below the water-line were 
sound and free from attack by the teredo. Some 
such patches were left above the water, the piles 
probably not being driven as far as anticipated, and 
in these the nails had completely oxidized, so that 
they could be dug out like sand, and the wood be- 
tween the nails, which were about half an inch apart, 
was also destroyed, being as brittle and easily dug 
out as charcoal, while the surface of the wood 
around these places and out of the influence of the 
iron was quite good. The difference of the effect 
of the nails above and below the water line was 
plainly seen. Some hemlock cross-ties were creo- 
soted and laid in the track near the creosote works 
about 16 years ago. They had been hewn, and 



92 TELEGRAPH POLES CREOSOTED. 

were more or less seasoned, and received a goodly 
quantity of oil. The oil has become hard and dry 
on the outside, but inside it is yet limpid and may 
be squeezed out after removing the outside of the 
tie. I could not learn that a single tie had been re- 
moved for the cause, and they, with others of later 
date, are doing service. Some other pieces of hem- 
lock and spruce were creosoted and cut up for other 
use. Wherever the oil penetrated, the timber is 
perfectly sound, though the center may be soft and 
rotten. The creosoted part is as tough and fibrous 
as ever. I do not think the fibre of timber is ever 
made short or brittle by creosote, though it may be, 
and sometimes is, by overheating. - I do not think 
timber should be heated to more than 250 degrees 
Fahrenheit. It has generally been considered that 
palmetto or cabbage wood was safe from the attacks 
of marine animals. I found several pieces at Pen- 
sacola, 3 or 4 years ago, which had been more or 
less eaten. This summer, I saw at Charlestown, 
South Carolina, numerous pieces badly eaten. They 
were taken out of a wharf at the Custom House, 
which was being rebuilt. I sent samples to the 
rooms of the Society at New York. In some of the 
pieces the teredo seemed to be well fed and flour- 
ishing, measuring about half an inch in diameter. 
With ordinary timber the bark is protection against 
the teredo, but with the palmetto that seemed to be 
the choicest part, though they cut both wood and 
bark. The wood of palmetto seems to be a bundle 
of interlaced fibres, held in place by a kind of veg- 
etable cement, which dissolves when the timber is 
used under water, and the fibres can then be drawn 
out singly. It has but little strength in either di- 
rection. Its greatest strength is in the bark. 
Respectfully yours, 

J. W. Putnam. 



RAILROAD TIES BURNETTIZED. 93 



Extract Transactions American Society C. E., Vol. 
XIV., Jan.-Dec, 1885, Pages 339-343. Appen- 
dix No. 14. 

REMARKS ON CREOSOTING. 

Octave Channte, Esq., Chairman of the Committee 
on Wood Preservation. 

Dear Sir : My own practical experience in wood 
preservation has been confined to creosoting. In 
England, where the metallic salt processes, i. e., Kyan- 
izing, Burnettizing,- etc., started in the race with 
creosoting about the year 1838, creosoting alone 
survives, and has been generally adopted wherever 
wood is used in railroad construction, or other out- 
of-door work. Before engaging in creosoting as a 
business, I satisfied myself, through Eastern cor- 
respondence mainly, that properly creosoted wood 
is indestructible by marine animal life, and will re- 
sist decay almost indefinitely. The members of our 
society were at that time generally unfamiliar with 
the process, and inclined to be skeptics. Since then 
sufficient has been learned from actual experience in 
this country to confirm the good reputation of this 
process in Europe. In some of our earlier trans- 
actions are papers giving results of experiments in 
so-called creosoting, especially as regards its effici- 
ency in preserving timber from the teredo. The 
fact is it was not creosoting at all, but a pretense. 
Mr. C. B. Sears says: "Over 1,000,000 feet was 
treated by the ' Robbins ' process, a modification of 
the Bethell; it was impregnated with the vapor of 
hydro-carbon oil, about i$4 lbs. of oil to the cubic 
foot, and cost $10 coin per 1,000 feet B. M. This 
in California. 

That such creosoting failed is no wonder, yet it 



94 BRIDGE TIMBER CREOSOTED. 

served to prejudice the process. The first really 
valuable information on wood preservation in the 
possession of the society is the paper of the Secre- 
tary, Jno. Bogard (on permanent way Trans. A. S. 
C. E., Vol. VIIL, Jan., 1879). This paper gives, 
in tabular form, without comment, categorical an- 
swers to a series of questions, asking for actual ex- 
perience, obtained from an extended correspond- 
ence with the chief engineers of all the large rail- 
ways in Great Britain. From that date the subject 
of wood preservation has been frequently discussed 
at our annual meetings, and several valuable papers 
thereon have appeared in our transactions. As 
stated above, the early creosoting was very imper- 
fectly done, and generally by companies started with 
large paper capital for the purpose of selling stock. 
Creosote was expensive, and the methods adopted by 
these companies were efforts to dispense with the 
use of creosote, except in a vaporous state. In 2 
or 3 places works were erected to carry out the 
Robbins vapor process, but there was little business 
and less faith. This failing, an attempt was made 
to adapt the weak machinery to good (?) creosoting. 
The cylinder burst at a pressure of 10 pounds. 
These attempts were followed by a period of dis- 
trust, and later came the creosoting of the present 
day, with expensive, powerful and efficient machin- 
ery and a system of thorough treatment, which, in 
some respects, is superior to the English system and 
will give good results. There are 3 essentials to 
success : First, the selection of suitable varieties of 
timber. Second, proper desiccation. Third, the 
injection of a sufficient quantity of creosote. 

First. It is safe to say that the varieties of tim- 
ber which are most perishable without treatment are 
best suited for creosoting. They are absorptive ; 
without treatment they readily take in from their 



FOUNDATION TIMBER CREOSOTED. 95 

surroundings the seeds of decay, and under treat- 
ment absorb the creosote freely and evenly. Where 
such wood will be subjected to strains, the engineer 
must call for larger dimensions than he would use 
with denser and stronger woods. But such allow- 
ances made, the Virginia or North Carolina pine 
is far better for creosoting than the Georgia pine, 
and porous black or red oak than white oak, and in 
either case the more sap wood the better as the sap 
wood is always fully saturated. Spruce is unrelia- 
ble for the purpose, on account of the diversity in 
density in different specimens. The most con- 
scientious treatment of spruce will fail to obtain uni- 
form and reliable results. 

Second. Desiccation. The Bethell process in 
use in Engand requires that all timber intended to 
be creosoted shall be exposed in the air until fully 
seasoned. In this country, when any important 
contract requiring timber is awarded, the trees are 
still standing in the forests. There is no available 
seasoned timber. Hence, we are compelled to adopt 
artificial desiccation, with the aid of steam 
coils within the treating cylinder, before the 
creosote is admitted. But through this neces- 
sity in the American process, we secure ad- 
ditional preservation because the degree of heat 
employed in the desiccation (about 250 degrees 
Fahrenheit) coagulates the albumenoids in the 
sap wood, and thus, in so far as coagulation acts as 
a preservative, all which is accomplished by the me- 
tallic salt process is attained in addition to the action 
of the antiseptic and other properties of the creosote 
itself. Without preliminary desiccation, creosoting 
must always be disappointing in its results as there 
will be many wet places unprotected. 

Third. The injection of a sufficient quantity of 
oil. Creosoting does not claim to be a cheap pro- 



96 PRESERVED WOOD PAVING BLOCKS. 

cess. Its cost, and that alone, stands in the way of 
its general adoption. On this account, while I pro- 
test against the small doses first used in this country, 
from an ounce of tar vapor to 2 lbs. of oil, I yet be- 
lieve that more than enough is wasteful. During 
the first 30 years after the introduction of the pro- 
cess in England, the practice was to inject from 6 
to 8 and one-half pounds per cubic foot, and the 
longest records of sound usefulness are of specimens 
thus treated ; but when the wood was to be pro- 
tected from the teredo ten pounds per cubic foot 
were used. 

Eleven hundred piles driven at Leith, Scot- 
land, in 1848, and reported by the engineer in charge 
as perfectly sound in 1882, w r ere treated with 10 lbs. 
only per cubic foot. Later practice in England 
sometimes called for 10 lbs., as a protection from 
decay alone, and Mr. Boulton, of London, who has 
had more than 30 years of practical experience in 
creosoting, wrote me that more than 12 lbs. per cubic 
foot is never called for by English engineers when 
for use in tropical climates. It does seem to me that 
the dose proved to be sufficient in England should 
suffice here. The atmospheric conditions are quite 
as favorable to decay there, and the cutting tools of 
the teredo are quite as actively employed, the Gulf 
Stream maintaining a long season for their work. 
As a practical creosoter, while willing and able to 
inject from 20 to 40 pounds per cubic foot in porous 
wood, if required, I feel impelled in the interest 
of economy to discourage the specification of more 
than 10 to 12 lbs. per cubic foot in most cases. Creo- 
sote oil is a distillate of coal tar — a residual product 
in the manufacture of coal gas. Chemists have pro- 
cured from coal tar a vast number of sub-products 
and combinations of great usefulness in dyeing, 
etc. The three principal coarse products of coal 



CREOSOTED PAVING BLOCKS. 97 

tar are the light oils, the heavy oils and pitch, all 
the results of distillation. The light oils (lighter 
than water) evolve in the distillation at a tempera- 
ture of 360 degs. to 480 degs. Fahrenheit. From 
these all the aniline colors are made. They are 
expensive and have no value in wood preservation. 
The heavy oils (heavier than water) are distilled at 
a temperature of from 480 degrees to 760 degrees 
Fahrenheit. These are the so-called creosote oils, 
and contain all the constituents of the coal tar useful 
in wood preservation. After the creosote comes the 
pitch. Creosote contains about 5 per cent of tar 
acids, i. e., carbolic, cresylic, and other acids, but the 
bulk is made up of semi-solid oils and naphthaline. 
Wood preservation by the metallic salt processes is 
solely chemical. Earlier, it was claimed that the zinc 
chloride, etc., formed insoluble chemical combina- 
tions with the albumen contained in the sap wood. 
Now it is generally allowed that no such combina- 
tions are formed, but that the value of metallic salts 
as antiseptic depends upon their continual presence 
in the woods, and as they are readily dissolved out of 
the wood, their effect is only temporary. The life 
of wood is prolonged by their use, when skillfully 
applied, yet in moist places they quickly lose their 
efficacy. The creosoting process is both chemical 
and mechanical. Besides the carbolic and other 
acids, it contains many other well recognized anti- 
septic constituents; but it is probable that the very 
long life of timber secured by thorough creosoting is 
due far more to the fact that the pores of the wood 
are filled up with the thick, gummy, insoluble oils 
and naphthaline, and thus keep out air and water 
which contain the germs of decay. That such is the 
case was conclusively shown by M. Roltier, a Bel- 
gian chemist, and later in 1866 by M. Chas. Coisne, 
Chief of Section of the State Railways of Belgium 



98 TELEGRAPH POLES BURNETTIZED. 

and Supt. of the Creosoting Works. By the latter 
two series of experiments were tried during a period 
of five or six years in burying in a compost heap 
made of decaying wood, manure, etc., shavings im- 
pregnated with creosote containing different per- 
centages of carbolic acid. The results showed that 
shavings saturated with carbolic and alone were en- 
tirely decayed and those saturated with the distillates 
at the lightest temperature which contained no car- 
bolic acid whatever were perfectly sound. Ex- 
perience with the metallic salts and the results of 
above experiments indicate that to preserve timber 
something more is required than an antiseptic for 
the purpose of coagulating the albumen. The very 
small percentage of albumen contained in the sap 
wood probably ferments readily and may originate 
decay, but the agencies of fermentation introduced 
into exposed timber by the air and water absorbed 
by the wood are vastly more dangerous than the 
seeds of decay contained originally in the wood itself. 
During the past hundred years almost every im- 
aginable substance has been proposed as a preserva- 
tive of wood, yet it may be that inventors are still at 
work ; if so, their attention would be best directed to 
such methods or materials as would close the pores 
of wood to air and water. The following record of 
experiments made in the harbor of N. Y. by the 
Dept. of Docks, of that city, and kindly furnished by 
Mr. G. S. Grene, Jr., M. Am. Soc. C. E., Engineer- 
in-Chief of the Dept., will probably prove of general 
interest. 

Edward R. Andrews. 



BRIDGE TIMBER BURNETTIZED. 99 



New York, May 10, 1882. 

Department of Docks, 117 and 119 Duane St., 
Engineer's Office, Chambers Street, Sept. 
13, 1883. 

Mr. G. S. Grene, Jr., Engineer-in-Chief : 

The accompanying comparitive table gives the re- 
sults of five annual examinations, made by the aid 
of a diver, of certain pieces of wood put down in 
May, 1878, at the end of Pier No. 1, North River, 
to ascertain the effect upon them of the teredo. 
These pieces of wood have always been placed where 
the current is strongest and entirely clear of the mud 
line, in order to expose them to the full action of the 
worms, and to show as strongly as possible the value 
of the different means that were adopted to protect 
them. * The numbers and groups were as follows : 



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102 SAWN TIMBERS CREOSOTED. 



Extract Transactions American Society of C. E., 
Vol. XIV., Jan.-Dec, 1885. Pages 353S55- 
Appendix No. 18. 

ECONOMY OF CREOSOTED TIES. 

New York, April 26, 1882. 
Octave Chanute, Esq., Chairman of Committee on 
Wood Preservation, Am. Soc. C. E. 

Dear Sir: I enclose a calculation to show true 
economy in the use of preserved railway ties. This 
economy is not shown in the first cost, but in their 
longer life and in the relative annual cost per mile 
of track of preserved and unpreserved ties. I as- 
sume 16 years as the probable service of creosoted 
soft wood ties and 8 years for unpreserved white oak 
ties. The former is the average life of creosoted 
Baltic fir sleepers on the railways in England, where 
the traffic is almost constant (see Bogart's paper, 
Trans. Am. Soc. C.E., Vol. VIII, page 18) ; the latter 
is all which is claimed for the best oak ties in this 
country, and they are generally dozy and unsafe 
during the last two years of their service. As it is 
sometimes claimed that the sum representing the 
extra cost of preserving, if put at interest, would 
yield enough to replace unpreserved ties when rotten, 
make the calculations at compound interest. Ex- 
ample : Relative cost per mile of track of white oak 
ties at 80c. each and creosoted soft w T ood ties at 90c. 
each, the quotations at the present time. 
April 1, 1882, cost of 2,600 creosoted soft 

wood, at 90c. each, for one mile of 

track $2,340.00 

April 1, 1882, compound interest at 6 per 

cent, for eight years 1,380.60 

$3,720.60 



PILES CREOSOTED. 103 

April i, 1882, cost of 2,600 best quality 

white oak ties at 80c $2,080.00 

Compound interest for eight years 1,233.44 

$3,31344 
April 1, 1890, cost of 2,600 creosoted soft 
wood ties at the end of eight years' service 
already in place, and good for eight 

years more $407.16 

April 1, 1890, cost of 2,600 new white oak 
ties to replace those laid in 1882 at 80c. 

each 2,080.00 

April 1, 1890, cost of transportation and 

relaying at 15c each. 390.00 

$2,470.00 
April 1, 1890, compound interest 

for 8 years at 6 per cent, on 

$2,470.00 $1,464.71 

April 1, 1890, compound interest 

on cost of 2,600 creosoted ties 

good for 8 years $407.16 $ 241.44 

April 1, 1898, balance in favor 

of soft wood ties per mile of 

track during service of 16 

years 3,286.11 

$3,93471 $3,934.71 

Further the annual cost for ties 
per mile of track laid with best 
white oak ties at 80c each, dur- 
ing a period of 16 years is. . . . $453.01 

Annual cost of creosoted soft 

wood ties at 90c. each 241.31 

Balance in favor of creosoted 
soft wood ties per annum dur- 
ing a period of 16 years $211.70 

$453.01 $4S3.oi 



104 SAWN TIMBERS BURNETTIZED. 

That the life of creosoted soft wood ties in this 
country will probably be 16 years seems evident 
from the experience on the Central New Jersey 
R. R. which has had laid in its main line, and under 
very heavy traffic, 10,000 creosoted Virginia pine 
ties during the past six years, and so far they show 
no signs of cutting under the rail, and are perfectly 
sound and apparently good for ten years' more 
service. From the above figures it appears that the 
cost of the creosoted ties for the ninth year is 
$407.16 per mile, or about equal to the annual cost 
of white oak ties during the first term of eight years, 
i. e., $414.18. Hence, if, under the heavy rolling 
stock at present in use, the creosoted soft wood ties 
will not last 16 years, they will affect a saving of 
$414.18 per mile of track for each and every year of 
service beyond nine years. A service of 16 years is 
allowed for trunk roads with very heavy traffic, but 
on roads with smaller business and with less wear 
on the ties, if absorbent woods be used, so that the 
treatment of the ties can be thoroughly done, it is 
safe to claim for creosoted ties a service of 24 years. 
(The English ties belonging to the society are per- 
fectly sound after 20 and 22 years' wear, even on the 
London and Northeastern, and the Southwestern 
Railways, where they were subjected to the whole 
immense traffic of those roads.) On a lower esti- 
mate for white oak ties, say 60c. each, and an as- 
sumed life for creosoted soft wood ties of 24 years 
and costing 90c. each, the annual cost of white oak 
ties lasting eight years requiring two renewals, with 
an additional charge of 15c. per tie for expense of 
transportation and relaying at each renewal, would 
be $227.50, while that of creosoted soft wood ties 
would be only $97.50, an annual saving per mile of 
track of $130. I realize that the above figures and 
considerations will not be applicable in every case, 



RAILROAD TIES CREOSOTED. 105 

but I hope they may serve to induce engineers to give 
a careful consideration to one of the most effective 
means of reducing the expenses of railway road- 
beds. 

Yours truly, 

Edward R. Andrews, 
Assoc. Am. Soc. C. E. 



Extract Transactions American Society of C. E. y 
Vol. XIV., Jan.-Dec, 1885, Pages 356-357- Ap- 
pendix No. 19. 

ECONOMY OF PRESERVING TIMBER. 

By B. M. Harrod, M. Am. Soc. C. E. 

The discussion of the methods and results of pre- 
serving timber leads to the question of relative 
economy, and when they can be profitably used. To 
make this clear, a statement has been prepared with 
regard to showing what increase of life or duration, 
under processes of different cost, is necessary to 
justify their use, by economic considerations. The 
prices and duration assumed are intended to be a fair 
average of those prevailing throughout the country. 
The method of computation can of course be applied 
to figures altered to suit different localities and cir- 
cumstances. 

If unpreserved ties cost 40c. to deliver, and 15c. 
to lay, spike and tamp, 2,600 can be laid to the mile 
at a cost of $1,430. Assuming five years as the 
average life of such ties, 520 of them must be re- 
newed annually. Each one will cost in place, say, 
65c, or ioc. more for relaying, than for the first 
laying, amounting to $338 annually per mile. This 
sum capitalized at 6 per cent is $5,633.33. Now, the 
original cost of ties, plus a capital whose interest will 
maintain them, can be fairly considered a fixed sum, 



106 TELEGRAPH POLES CREOSOTED. 

from which the relative economy and required life 
of preserved ties can be deducted. This, as esti- 
mated above ($1,430— $5,633.33), is $7063.33 per 
mile. Now, assuming that a tie costing 40c. can be 
carried to and from the preserving works for 5c. 
and preserved for 20c. and laid for 15c. (total, 80c), 
we have $2,080 as the first cost of 2,600 ties in a 
mile. This, deducted from the fixed sum, leaves 
$4,983.33, capitalized for maintenance, producing 
$299 per annum, at 6 per cent. With a renewed tie 
costing 40c, preservation 20c, extra transportation 
5c, and laying 25c. (total 90c), the interest on the 
balance for maintenance ($299) is only sufficient for 
322.22 new ties per mile, or 1 in each 7.83 annually. 
It is, therefore, necessary, in order to justify a cost 
of preservation of 20c. per tie (or of 25c. transporta- 
tion included), that the average life of each should 
be 7.83, instead of 5 years, or an increase of two 
years and ten months. In like manner we find that 
a cost of preservation at 40c. per tie must insure an 
average life of 10.68 years ; a cost of 60c. a life of 
14.29 years ; a cost of 80c. a life of 18.99 years, and 
a cost of $1 a life of 25.37 years. Also, that an in- 
destructible tie is worth in place $2.72. These re- 
sults can be checked in a table as follows : 

First Cost. Interest. Annual Renewals. on <# 063.33. 

$l,430at6%-$85.80 $2,60(M- 5 =$520.00 at J0.65=$338.00=#423.80 
2,080 at 6% =124.80 2,600-h- 7.83=332.22 at 0.90= 298.80= 423.80 
2,600 at 6% =156.00 2,600-^-10.68=243,45 at 1.10= 267.80= 423.80 
3,120 at 6%=187.20 2,600-^-14.29=182.00 at 1.30= 236.60= 423.80 
3,640>t;6% =218.40 2, 600-KL 8. 99=136.93 at 1.50=205.40=423.80 
4,160 at 6% =249.60 2,600-^25.37=102.47 at 1.70=174.20=423.80 

If we assume the cost of bridge timber at $15 a 
thousand, its framing at $15, and its average life at 
seven years, we find, by applying a similar compu- 
tation to 100,000 feet, that a cost of preservation of 



RAILROAD TIES BURNETTIZED. 10? 

$5 per thousand requires a life of 8.8 years ; a cost 
of $io a life of 10.85 years; a cost of $15 a life of 
13.3 years; a cost of $20 a life of 16.2 years, and 
finally, a cost of $25 a life of 19.7 years to justify 
its use. The rigid application of such a statement as 
this would be modified by certain general considera- 
tions which are sufficiently obvious. The more in- 
ferior the material, or the more exposed the situa- 
tion, the greater is the relative importance of preser- 
vative processes. Five years additional life doubles 
the value of material — which, unprepared, would 
only last 5 years, while it only adds 50 per cent, to 
the value of material naturally good for 10 years. 
Under this consideration, the inferior pines, gums, 
and even cottonwood, might be used for ties. Again, 
difficulty of access for inspection or repair is a good 
reason for preservation, even when its immediate 
economy is not apparent. This would apply to piles 
and bedded or concealed sleepers. Also, the use of 
more enduring materials, reduces the cost of main- 
tenance of engineering constructions in various in- 
direct ways, that are difficult of estimate in a general 
statement. For instance, if cross-ties lasted 12 years 
instead of five, five men could do the work of re- 
placing over a length of road that now requires 
twelve men. Under the present rate of consumption, 
such scarcity of raw material, as will very greatly 
enhance its value, is in the near future. There is a 
wise economy in limiting the use of our woodland 
wealth to the rate at which it accumulates, as well 
as in preventing other well-attested evils that will 
surely follow the deforesting of the national domain. 
It is, therefore, reasonable to claim that when the 
economy of preserved and of unpreserved lumber, 
based on relative cost and durability, appears evenly 
balanced, there are still reasons, perhaps remote, but 
certainly valid, why a preference should be given the 
former. 



108 BRIDGE TIMBER CREOSOTED. 



Extract Transactions American Society of C. E. } 
Vol. XIV., Jan.-Dcc., 1885, Pages 350-351. 
Appendix No. 17. 

report on economy of burnettizing. 

New York, Lake Erie and Western Railroad 
Co., Office of the Chief Engineer, P. O. 
Box 839. 

New York, May 4, 1883. 

A. Harris, Esq., Vice-President, Etc.: 

Dear Sir: In answer to your inquiry as to what 
is my estimate of the annual saving to be expected, 
if burnettized hemlock ties are used instead of the 
present practice, I beg to report that the following 
table shows the number of ties annually used in re- 
pairs : 

Year. =-« Delaware S ST Western R B »™°* Totals . 
uiv. uiv. Div uiv. Div 

1875 186,700 140,597 118,045 102,375 92,000 639,717 

1876 184,110 92,930 125,945 139,426 175,555 717,966 

1877 148,201 107,354 123,576 110,141 108,466 597,738 

1878 112,342 104,472 153,622 106,537 129,581 606,654 

1879 155,000 238,000 215,500 121,130 232,213 961,863 

1880 159,799 109,954 138,204 114,645 281,124 803,726 

1881 132,300 126,958 118.204 117,419 155,422 650,303 

1882 170,218 132,815 61,923 87,923 266,636 719,530 

Total 5,697,498 

These renewals, for the eight years tabulated, 
average 712,187 ties a year, and as during that time 
the road was operating an average of 1,329 miles of 
main tracks, and of 406 miles of side tracks, there 
were, during that time, approximately 3,520,000 ties 
in the main track, and some 1,060,000 ties in sidings, 
a total of 4,680,000 ties on the whole line. This, 
divided by the 712,187, which were placed on an 



FOUNDATION TIMBER CREOSOTED. 109 

average each year, gives an average life of G l / 2 years 
each for the unprepared ties heretofore used on the 
road. I believe, however, that in point of fact the 
average life of ties is about $y 2 or 5^4 years in the 
main tracks, and about 8 years in side tracks, where 
they are allowed to remain until they are in a worse 
condition of decay, and where the lesser running of 
trains diminishes their cutting under the base of the 
rails. These ties are of three kinds of timber : 
white oak, which costs an average of 62c. a tie, and 
lasts about seven years ; chestnut, which costs an 
average of 45c. a tie, and lasts about five years, and 
hemlock, which costs an average of 28c. a tie, and 
lasts about 3^ years. To the above prices must 
be added some 15c. a tie for the cost of distributing 
them and putting them in the track, so that the first 
cost to the road, and the annual charges are as fol- 
lows : 

White oak costs 77c, lasts 7 years, annual charge 
lie. 

Chestnut costs 60c, lasts 5 years, annual charge, 
12c. 

Hemlock costs 43c, lasts 3% years, annual 
charge, 12.3c. 

All experience conclusivelv proves that hemlock 
ties thoroughly Burnettized will outlast unprepared 
white oak. On the German railroads, the returns of 
several lines show that Burnettized fir (this being 
the timber which corresponds to our hemlock) en- 
dures in the track from 14 to 15 years. A similar 
result has been obtained in this country on the 
Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad, on the Vermont 
Central Railroad, and on the Chicago, Rock Island 
and Pacific Railroad, as well as experimentally on 
the Erie Railway; and such failures as have oc- 
curred can be directly traced to improper treatment, 
such as attempts to impregnate wood while yet full 



110 PRESERVED WOOD PAVING BLOCKS. 

of green sap, or the use of too strong a solution, 
which tends to make the wood brittle. In order, 
however, to make sure that the estimates shall be 
eminently safe, I shall assume a life of but 12 years 
for Burnettized hemlock in calculations which fol- 
low. I am convinced that better results will be at- 
tained if the work is well and skillfully done. I 
estimate the cost of Burnettized hemlock ties in the 
track as follows : 

First cost of unprepared ties 28c. 

Hauling *4 of output at 16c. each. ... 4c. 

Burnettizing 25c. 

Distributing and putting in track. ... 15c. 

Total 72c. 

The annual charge, therefore, if they last 12 years, 
will be 6c. a year a tie, in lieu of the uc. a year a 
tie, which the unprepared white oak ties are esti- 
mated to cost, while the annual charge on chestnut 
and unprepared hemlock is still greater. The 
economy therefore, of Burnettized hemlock ties over 
unprepared white oak amounts to 5c. a tie in first 
cost (77c. — 72c.) and to 5c. a year a tie upon the num- 
ber in the track, so that if we suppose two roads of 
the present mileage of the " Erie " — i. e., with 1,467 
miles of main tracks and 517 miles of sidings, on 
which there are approximately some 5,000,000 of 
ties, the one laid with Burnettized hemlock would 
save over the other, if laid with unprepared white 
oak, $250,000 every 12 years in the first cost, and 
also $250,000 a year in the average annual charge 
for renewal of ties. This economy, however, can 
only accrue as fast as the road is relaid with Bur- 
nettized ties. The works which it is proposed to 
erect will have a capacity of 300,000 ties a year, but 
to cover mishaps and detentions it will be safe to 



CREOSOTED PAVING BLOCKS. Ill 

assume that only 250,000 ties will be annually pre- 
pared. The annual economy, therefore, will be a 
gradually increasing one until the whole road is re- 
laid with Burnettized ties. The first year the saving 
will be only the 5c. difference in the first cost, say 
$12,500 for 250,000 ties; the second year it will be 
$12,500 on that year's purchase, and $12,500 more 
on the annual charge for depreciation of the 250,000 
ties put in during the previous year. The third year 
the saving will be $12,500 in the first cost, and 
$25,000 in the annual charges on the 500,000 ties 
Burnettized during the previous two years, and so 
on. The following table shows how this annual 
economy increases : 

First year's difference in first cost, 250,000 

ties at 5c $12,500 

Second year, first cost $12,500, annual 

charge $12,500 25,000 

Third year, first cost $12,500, annual charge 
$25,000 37,500 

Fourth year, first cost $12,500, annual 

charge $37,5°° 50,000 

Fifth year, first cost $12,500, annual charge 

$50,000 62,500 

Sixth year, first cost $12,500, annual charge 

$62,500 75,000 

Seventh year, first cost $12,500, annual 

charge $75,000 87,500 

Eighth year, first cost $12,500, annual 

charge $87,500 100,000 

Ninth year, first cost $12,500, annual charge 

$100,000 1 12,500 

Tenth year, first cost $12,500, annual charge 

$1 12,500 125,000 

Eleventh year, first cost $12,500, annual 

charge $125,000 I37>5°° 



112 TELEGRAPH POLES BURNETTIZED. 

Twelfth year, first cost $12,500, annual 

charge $137,500 150,000 

Thirteenth year, first cost $12,500, annual 

charge $150,000 162,500 

Fourteenth year, first cost $12,500, annual 

charge $162,500 175,000 

Fifteenth year, first cost $12,500, annual 

charge $175,000 187,500 

Sixteenth year, first cost $12,500, annual 

charge $187,500 200,000 

Seventeenth year, first cost $12,500, annual 

charge $200,000 212,500 

Eighteenth year, first cost $12,500, annual 

charge $212,500 225,000 

Nineteenth year, first cost $12,500, annual 

charge $225,000 237,500 

Twentieth year, first cost $12,500, annual 

charge $237,500 250,000 

After the twentieth year, when all the ties on the 
road have been placed with Burnettized hemlock 
(and I may here remark that nearly as good results 
can be obtained with Burnettized beech), the full 
annual economy of $250,000 a year will obtain as 
compared with the present practice. Nothing has 
here been said about interest on the sums saved, nor 
about the certainty that the price of the more durable 
timbers will rapidly advance in the near future. 
Such calculations are more or less fallacious, be- 
cause the cost of interest varies, and because the 
cheaper woods also advance in price, but I am very 
clear it will be good economy to avail of the heavy 
body of hemlock and beech recently opened by the 
extension of the Bradford Branch by relaying a por- 
tion of the road with ties of those woods, Burnett- 
ized, before the timber is cut up for other uses. 
Respectfully, Q Chanute . 

Chief Engineer. 



BRIDGE TIMBER BURNETTIZED. 113 



Experiments in San Francisco Harbor. 

Since August, 1879, the Board of State Harbor 
Commissioners have tried the following processes 
for preserving piles and timber in wharf construc- 
tion : The Robbins process, the Von Jensen process 
(class 11), Thelmany process (class 11), Horton 
process (class 1), Wood process (class 11), Culver 
process (class 1), Asbestos felt (class 1), a coal tar 
process, name not known (class 1), Von Schmidt 
process, Shay or Duffey process, McKeown process, 
Raye process, the Pierce and Beardsly process, and 
many other processes not having titles. All of 
these experiments proved failures. 



Transactions of the Technical Society of the Pacific 
Coast. 

Therefore, with the evidence herein presented of 
the value of creosoting, as compared with any of the 
other processes that have been tried here and else- 
where, it would appear clear that persons desiring 
to preserve piles or timber would not be justified in 
further expensive and doubtful experimenting while 
a sure thing is obtainable. 



To Architects. 

Where timbers are to be used in the construc- 
tion of heavy buildings, or any construction, timber 
that may be liable to rot or decay can be preserved 
from such effects by creosoting. Sunken timbers, 
as often used for foundation base, would last indef- 
initely if so treated. All timbers for exposed heavy 
construction should be creosoted. 



114 DEALERS IN PILES AND POLES. 

J. I. Boggs, Assoc. M. Am. Soc. C. E. (by let- 
ter). In discussing the Mr. Boggs' paper by Wal- 
ter W. Curtis, M. Am. Soc. C. E., the writer gave 
the results of some observations on creosoted pine 
ties along the line of the Houston and Texas Cen- 
tral Railway. These ties had seen 20 years' ser- 
vice, and it was estimated that fully 80 per cent, 
of the original number was yet in the track. The 
objections to them were: First, the soft wood used, 
which permitted the rail to cut into the timber very 
"badly; Second, their high price. These observa- 
tions were recently confirmed by M. G. Howe, M. 
Am. Soc. C. E., the present Engineer of Maintain- 
ance-of-Way, and by G. A. Quinlan, M. Am. Soc. 
C. E., the General Manager of the road, in a late 
issue of " Engineering News." Twenty years ago 
Bethell's process was still in its infancy, and, owing 
to its excessive cost, managers hesitated to use it, 
except to a very limited extent ; but with the facts 
deduced from our past experience, certainly none 
can justly say that " no process has yet been dis- 
covered which can be fully depended upon " for 
the preservation of timber, and it appears to the 
writer that the time for hesitation is past, especi- 
ally when we consider the depleted conditions of our 
forests. The writer has seen some rotten creosoted 
piling, but in nearly every case this was caused by 
the bridge carpenters cutting off the ends of the 
sticks after the piling was driven and neglecting to 
apply the hot preservative to the exposed end, and 
thereby permitting it to absorb moisture from the 
atmosphere for days and sometimes weeks at a 
time. In other cases this decay may be attributed 
to the treatment of defective timber. The writer 
has never been troubled with dry rot by the checking 
of the creosoted pine timbers after they were in the 
structure. It is unfortunate that a great many of 



PAVING BLOCKS FOR SALE. 115 

our co-workers imagine the poorest class of timber 
to be the best for creosoting purposes, because it 
has given rise to the fallacy that " the timber is 
much weakened by the process.'' The fact is, if the 
timber is properly treated, the dead oil neither adds to 
nor detracts from its strength; but, in nearly every 
case, comparisons are made between the very poor 
est and the very best material, the result being the 
hastily and erroneously drawn conclusion that " the 
process, weakens " it. The writer has seen " thor- 
oughly creosoted piles sometimes break in hand- 
ling," but close investigation in each instance has 
shown that originally they were of the poorest pine, 
such as is known as the " Loblolly " ; that they 
were stacked in the yard to " dry out " for 2 or 3 
months before being treated, and were, in fact, rot- 
ten before the oil ever touched them. 



Extract Transactions American Society of Civil En- 
gineers, Vol. XLIV., December, 1900, Pages 
203-210. 

DISCUSSION ON TIMBER PRESERVATION. 

R. Montfort, M. Am. Soc. C. E. The writer's 
attention has been called to Mr. Boggs' discussion, 
in which the following statement is made : " R. 
Montfort, M. Am. Soc. C. E., Chief Engineer of the 
Louisville and Nashville Railway, is in a better po- 
sition than any one known to the writer to speak 
with authority on the action of the teredo on creo- 
soted piles, as his line traverses a number of salt 
water inlets along the Gulf Coast, and probably 
owns one of the oldest creosoting plants in the 
country. It is the writer's impression that he has 
entirely abandoned treating his piling, and is now 
protecting it with salt-glazed sewer pipe, as creo- 



116 SAWN TIMBERS CREOSOTED. 

soting did not protect against the teredo." Mr. 
Boggs is mistaken in his impression. The Louis- 
ville and Nashville Railroad Co., during the past 
twelve months, constructed a large dock and ware- 
house at the foot of Commendencia Street, Pensa- 
cola, Florida, in which some 6,000 creosoted piles, 
averaging 70 feet in length, and treated with 20 
lbs. of creosote oil per cubic foot, were used. In 
addition to this, during the same period, about 
2,000,000 feet of sawed timber were used by this 
company on the wharf referred to, and for bridges, 
culverts, etc. It certainly, therefore, cannot be said 
that the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company 
has entirely abandoned the use of creosote oil for 
protecting piling and timber against the teredo and 
against rot. It is true that after a service of 14 years 
the creosoted piles in trestles across Biloxi Bay, and 
Bay St. Louis, on the New Orleans and Mobile 
Division, and across Escambia Bay, on the Pensa- 
cola and Atlantic Division of the Louisville and 
Nashville Railroad, were found to be attacked to a 
more or less serious degree by the teredo, and the 
piles in these trestles were further protected against 
the teredo by concrete or by vitrified clay pipe as 
described in a paper by the writer, read before this 
Society, November 1st, 1893. The same creosoted 
piling, driven in 1878, namely: 2,626 piles at Bay 
St. Louis, and 1,648 piles at Biloxi Bay, or a total 
of 4,274 piles, with the exception of 3 that have 
been replaced by new piles on account of rot, and 
122 piles that were destroyed by the hurricane of 
October 2d, 1893, are still in use, giving good ser- 
vice, and with prospect of lasting several years to 
come. Untreated piles at these bridges would not 
last, on an average, more than 7 years as against 
rot, or 6 months against the teredo. Mr. Boggs 
does not state as to the treatment adopted, or the 



PILES CREOSOTED. 117 

quality of the oil used in the piles of the Gulf, Colo- 
rado and Santa Fe Ry. at Galveston, Texas, which 
gave poor results. From the writer's experience 
he is inclined to think there must have been some 
defect, either in the treatment or in the quality or 
quantity of the oil used that caused such results. 
The writer believes Mr. Geo. S. Valentine, who 
for years has been in charge of The Eppinger and 
Russell Company's creosote works, Long Island 
City, N. Y., treated piles in the early 7o's that were 
driven in Galveston Bay, and are still doing service 
if they have not been destroyed by the recent hurri- 
cane. In discussing the paper referred to, the 
writer said : 

•" In recent years we have been experimenting 
with a mixture of resin and dead oil, with the hope 
that the resin will aid in fixing the oil and prevent 
it from being dissolved or washed out. Sufficient 
time has not elapsed to form any definite conclu- 
sion, although, so far, piles thus treated have given 
satisfactory results." It is to be regretted that 
further experience with piles treated with dead oil 
of coal-tar and resin has not given the satisfactory 
results hoped for. In 1890, it having been found 
that the teredo had commenced to attack the piles 
in piers of East and West Pascagoula River bridges, 
driven in 1876, it was decided to strengthen the 
piers by replacing 2 piles at each end of each pier, 
consisting of 16 piles. 

These piles were 80 ft. long, 10 ins. in diameter 
at the small end, and were driven 40 ft. into the 
bottom of the river. They were treated with a 
mixture of resin and oil in the proportion of 45 
barrels of resin to 30 barrels of creosote oil, which 
is about the same proportion Mr. Kummer pro- 
poses to use. The total number of piles treated 
in this way and driven at those bridges was 88. 



118 SAWN TIMBERS BURNETTIZED. 

A recent examination of these piles for rot, by bor- 
ing, showed that of the inside piles driven in 1876, 
and, therefore, 24 years old, only 8 per cent, showed 
rot in the heart, while of those treated with the 
mixture of oil and resin, driven in 1890, and only 
10 years old, 43 per cent, showed rot in the heart. 
An examination by diver showed that the piles 24 
years old, originally treated with creosote oil, were 
in better condition than the piles only 10 years old 
treated with the creosote oil and resin mixture. 
From this it will be seen that the idea of mixing 
resin with creosote oil did not originate with Mr. 
Kummer, but was used by the late J. W. Putnam, 
Assoc. Am. Soc. C. E., who did the work referred 
to, under contract, more than 10 years ago. The 
writer hopes that Mr. Rummer's experience with 
piles so treated will be better than the results ob- 
tained on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. 

Geo. S. Valentine, Esq. (by letter). In May, 
1874, in conjunction with Mr. R. S. Trundy, the 
writer built a small creosoting plant at Galveston 
to treat paving blocks, which were afterwards laid 
on Market Street, in that city. The lumber used 
was the ordinary sound and square-edged yellow 
pine, which was treated with 12 lbs. of dead oil of 
coal-tar per cubic foot, and laid under the Stow 
patent, which consisted in a wedge being driven 
between each row of blocks for half the depth of 
the block. The blocks were 6 ins. deep and 4 ins. 
wide. The wedge was 6 ins. long and 1 in. thick, 
and was driven into the ground 3 ins. This left 
between each row of blocks a groove 1 in. wide and 
3 ins. deep, which was filled with fine gravel and 
a mixture of asphalt. The pavement is still in good 
condition. A few years ago when the motive power 
of the railroad was being changed from mules to 
electricity, the contractor, Mr. J. W. Byrnes, of that 



RAILROAD TIES CREOSOTED. 119 

city, offered a reward of $50 to anyone who could 
find an unsound block among those which were 
taken up, and, although a great many persons were 
searching, he did not have to pay the reward. 



Mr. W. G. Curtis, in a discussion on the subject 
of timber preservation before the Association of 
Engineering Societies in 1895, states that he believes 
creosoted timber or piles, if well treated, will last 
something like the same as timbers in a covered 
bridge or in a house ; they are protected against air 
and water; that the heavy oils which are injected 
into the outer pores of the timber, protect it from the 
absorption of water or the entrance of air, in the 
same manner, and thereby protect it for an indefinite 
period of time. 



We have already stated that the chemical pro- 
cesses have failed with the exception of Bethell's 
process of oil of tar, generally known as the creo- 
soting process. This method when properly carried 
out, thoroughly protects the wood from the ravages 
of the teredo and other marine worms. The break- 
waters and piers at Leith, Holyhead, Portland, 
Lowestoft, Great Grimsby, Plymouth, Wisbeach, 
Southampton, etc., have been built with creosoted 
timber and in no case have the teredo navalis, lim- 
noria terebrans, or any other marine worms or in- 
sects been found to attack these woods, as certified 
to by the engineers in whose charge the several 
works are placed. In the case of Lowestoft and 
Southampton we are enabled to give the detailed 
reports. A most searching examination, lasting 
many days, was made in 1849, upon every pile in 
Lowestoft Harbor, by direction of Mr. Bidder; 



120 TELEGRAPH POLES CREOSOTED. 

°nd the report of Mr. Makinson, the Supt. of 
Lowestoft Harbor Works, contains the subjoined 
statement : 

" The following is the result, after a close and 
minute investigation of all the piles in the North 
and South Piers: 

" North Pier. — The whole of the creosoted piles 
in the North Pier, both seaward and inside the 
harbor, 900 in number, are sound, and quite free 
from the teredo and limnoria. 

" South Pier. — The whole of the creosoted piles 
in the South Pier both seaward and inside the har- 
bor, 700 in number, are sound and quite free from 
the teredo and limnoria. 

" There is no instance whatever of an uncreosoted 
pile being sound. They are all attacked, both by 
the limnoria and teredo, to a verv great extent, and 
the piles in some instances are eaten through. All 
the creosoted piles are quite sound, being neither 
touched by the teredo or the limnoria, though cov- 
ered with vegetation which generally attracts the 
teredo. " There was only one instance of a piece 
of creosoted wood in Lowestoft Harbor being 
touched by a worm, and that zvas occasioned by the 
workmen hazing cut azvay a great part of one of 
the cross heads leaving exposed the interior or heart 
of the wood, to which the creosote had not pene- 
trated. At this spot a worm entered, and bored 
to the right, where it found creosote ; on turning 
back and boring to the left, finding creosote all 
around, its progress was stopped, and it then ap- 
peared to have left the piece of wood altogether. 
In 1849, Mn Doswell, who had the conduct of ex- 
periments on different descriptions of wood at 
Southampton, where the river was so full of the 
worm that piles of 14 inches square had been eaten 
down to 4 in. in four years, reported as follows : 



RAILROAD TIES BURNETTIZED. 121 

" From my examination last spring tides of the 
specimen blocks attached, on the 22d February, 
1848, to some worm-eaten piles of the Royal Pier, 
I am enabled to report that Bethell's creosoted tim- 
bers all continue to be unaffected by the worms; 
that the pieces saturated with Payne's solution 
continue to lose in substance by their ravages ; and 
that the unprepared timbers diminish very fast, ex- 
cept the American elm, which stands as well (or 
nearly so) as that prepared by Payne's solution/' 
The following are the detailed particulars: 

Memel at low water of spring tides 1 Unaffected by 

Red pine at low water of neap tides J worms. 

Yellow fir at high water of neap tides A few barnacles. 

Paynized Blocks, Placed April 6, 1848. 
Red pine at low water of spring tides Worm-eaten. 

American elm at low water of neap tides ) A f hprrmHp . 
Fir at high water of neap tides / A iew barnacles - 

Unprepared Blocks, Placed April 6, 1848. 
Memel at low water of spring tides Much worm-eaten. 

American elm at low water of neap tides A few barnacles. 
Fir at high water of neap tides Much worm-eaten. 

On January 1st, 1852, Mr. Doswell ascertained 
that notwithstanding the number of teredines and 
limnoria to be found in the Southampton waters, 
none of the creosoted blocks had been attacked by 
them. According to M. Forestier, similar results 
have been obtained at Brighton, Sunderland and 
Teignmouth. Allusion has already been made to 
Mr. Pritchard of Shoreham, with reference to pre- 
serving timber. On July 26, 1842, he presented a 
report to the Treas. of the Brighton Suspension 
Chain Pier Company, upon the preservation of tim- 
ber from the action of the sea worms. We give a 



122 BRIDGE TIMBER CREOSOTED. 

portion of it as follows: Stockholm tar has been 
used, and proved to be of little service; this tar is 
objectionable owing to its high price, and also from 
its being manufactured from vegetable substances. 
All tars containing vegetable productions must be 
detrimental to the preservation of timber, especially 
when used in, and exposed to salt water. This tar 
does not penetrate into the wood and in a very few 
months the salt acid of the sea will eat it all 
away. Common gas or coal tar has been used 
to a great extent, and its effects are apparent to all. 
It does a very great deal of harm, forms a hard or 
brittle crust or coat on the wood, and completely 
excludes the damp and unnatural heat from the 
possibility of escape owing to its containing ammo- 
nia which burns the timber and in a few years turns 
brown and crumbles into dust. Indeed, timber pre- 
pared with this tar will be completely destroyed on 
this coast and pier by the ravages of the teredo nav- 
alis, and the limnoria terebrans, in five or six years. 
Also Kyan's patent, or the bi-chloride of mercury, 
has been used, but has proved equally useless. The 
sleepers kyanized 5 yrs. ago and in use at West In- 
dia Dock Warehouses, have been discovered to decay 
rapidly and the wooden tanks at the Anti-Dry Rot 
Company's principal yard are destroyed. To con- 
clude, it results from experiments which the commit- 
tee has directed during six consecutive years, that 
first coatings of any sort whatever applied to the 
surface of the timber in order to cover it with an 
envelope is insufficient protection ; such an envelope 
soon becomes damaged, either by mechanical ac- 
tion such as the friction of water or ice, or by the 
dissolving action of water; and as soon as any 
point upon the surface of the wood is uncovered, 
however small it be, the teredoes of microscopic 
size penetrate into the interior of the wood. Cov- 



FOUNDATION TIMBER CREOSOTED. 123 

ering wood with plates of copper, or zinc, or flat- 
headed nails are expensive processes and only de- 
fend the wood as long as they present a perfect and 
unbroken surface. 2nd. Impregnation with solu- 
ble metallic salts generally considered poisonous to 
animals does not preserve the wood from the in- 
vasions of the teredo; the failure of these salts is 
partly attributable to their being soaked out of the 
wood by the dissolving action of the sea water, 
partly also to the fact that some of these salts do 
not appear to be poisonous to the teredo. 3rd. Al- 
though we cannot venture to say that there may not 
be found in the colonies a wood that may resist the 
teredo, yet we affirm that hardness of any timber is 
not an obstacle to the perforations of this mollusc 
This has been proven by the ravages it has made on 
the Gaiac and Mamberklak woods. 4th. The only 
means which can be confidently regarded as a pre- 
servative against the ravages of the teredo is the 
creosote oil; nevertheless in the employment of 
this agent great care should be taken regarding the 
quality of the oil, the degree of penetration and the 
quality of the wood treated. These results of the 
experiments of the committee are confirmed by the 
experience of a large number of engineers of ponts et 
chaussees (bridges and causeways) in Holland, Eng- 
land, France and Belgium. For example, very late- 
ly a Belgian engineer, M. Crepin, expressed himself 
as follows in his report dated 5th Feb., 1864, upon 
experiments made at Ostend : " The experiment 
now appears to us decisive and we think we may 
consider that fir timber well prepared with creosote 
oil of- good quality is proof against the teredo, and 
certain to last for a long time. Everything de- 
pends, therefore, upon a good preparation with 
good creosote oil, and on the use of wood capable to 
injection. It appears that resinous wood is easiest 



124 PRESERVED WOOD PAVING BLOCKS. 

to impregnate and that white fir should be rejected. 
M. Forestier, the able French engineer at Napo- 
leon Vendee, sums up as follows the results of the 
experiments undertaken by him in the port Sables- 
d'Olonne, viz. : 

" These results fully confirm those obtained at 
Ostend, and it appears to us difficult not to admit 
that the experiments of Ostend and Sables d'Olonne 
are decisive and prove in an incontestable manner 
that the teredo cannot attack wood properly creo- 
soted." 



CREOSOTED PAVING BLOCKS. 125 



WOOD PAVEMENTS 

Extract from " San Francisco Call/' Nov. 12, 1896. 

London has accepted them in preference to other 
materials. 

The interest of the public in the question of street 
paving is shown in many ways. The bicycle has 
done wonders, but beyond that there is a growing 
recognition that the discomfort of bad paving is 
an infliction that the ordinary citizen has no right to 
tolerate. It has been said by a modern traveler 
that a street in which the pedestrians cannot con- 
verse in comfort by reason of the rattle of the car- 
riage wheels over the stones is nowadays a disgrace 
to any municipality. This is the keynote of the 
latest improvements in street pavement. The ten- 
dency is toward a paving that will save the nerve- 
racking din that Americans have too long looked 
upon as unavoidable. The pavement of the future 
will be practically noiseless. For this purpose all 
tests show indisputably the superiority of wood, 
whether considered in reference to safety, the facil- 
ity w T ith which a horse can recover his footing, the 
speed at which it is safe to travel, or the gradient 
at which it may be laid. Recently inquiries were 
made among a large number of drivers of different 
kinds of vehicles in London to ascertain their opin- 
ion in regard to the various pavements laid there 
with the result that 50 declared in favor of asphalt, 
197 in favor of granite, 219 in favor of macadam, 
and 750 in favor of wood. The general opposition 
to asphalt both there and here is significant. It is 
condemned by every person who ever drove a horse. 



126 TELEGRAPH POLES BURNETTIZED. 

Its surface becomes uneven, causing a side-to-side 
motion. It is slippery in winter. It is inefficient, 
except for streets where there is but little traffic 
and it has been generally discarded in Europe. The 
prejudice of this country against wood only exists 
because of a lack of knowledge. As it is now laid 
it is an artificial stone pavement with a wood cov- 
ering which can be easily renewed at little expense. 
Its average life in London, with repairing, is about 
10 years, and it would last as long here. The state- 
ment that it is unhealthy is unsubstantiated. The 
London Engineer of Sewers says that although 
some of the streets have been paved with wood for 
upward of 30 years no complaint on that head had 
reached him. A French bacteriologist has lately 
given data which entirely disproves the idea of 
unhealthiness of wood paving. It is now in gen- 
eral use in London and Paris, and it is indorsed by 
many officials who have given careful study to the 
question of modern city pavements. — G. H. G., in 
Pittsburg Dispatch. 



Extract from Portland, Ore., " Telegram," Nov. 
22, ipoi. 

The current number of the Municipal Journal 
and Engineer contains an article on wood-block 
pavement that may be of interest to Portland, hence 
it is briefly reviewed. The article was written by 
R. T. Wheeler, Supt. of Streets of Boston. There 
the problem has been to get a pavement that should 
be less noisy than granite and less slippery than 
asphalt, but as durable. It is claimed that Boston 
has the smoothest granite pavements of any city 
in the world but while granite will last indefinitely 
it is offensive and annoying to the ear. Asphalt 



BRIDGE TIMBER BURNETTIZED. 127 

is objectionable because it is not well adapted to the 
wide variations of temperature experienced at Bos- 
ton. It frequently is slippery, so that at some seas- 
ons it has to be sanded every morning. Brick, nor 
coal-tar products, Mr. Wheeler says, will not with- 
stand the immense traffic to which streets in the 
business districts are subjected. Some experi- 
ments have been made with wooden pavements. 
Small areas of wood blocks, treated with " creo- 
resinate," were laid last year, side by side with as- 
phalt pavements, in order to make a test, and the 
Supt. says that after a year's trial the wood pave- 
ment is entirely satisfactory in every respect, ex- 
cept as to slipperiness, it being laid on streets with 
steep inclines. It is noiseless and the surface has 
become so unified that the joints are indistinguish- 
able, no wear, after a year's use, being apparent. 
Another area with a three per cent, grade was laid 
with joints or interstices extending clear across 
the street one-quarter of an inch wide and one and 
a half inches deep, these spaces being filled with 
Portland cement grout concrete. This pavement, 
Mr. Wheeler thinks, will be less slippery than the 
other. He thus sums up the advantages of wooden 
pavements : 

" It is noiseless ; it remains where it is put, does 
not creep and crawl and become billowy, like as- 
phalt; it can be taken up for necessary excavation, 
and I believe the test of time will prove its durabil- 
ity and its superiority under moderate traffic over 
any other pavement now laid." 

Curiously, Mr. Wheeler does not mention the kind 
of wood used, but it is probably pine. The climate 
must also be considered with reference to any kind 
of pavement. What would be best in one place 
might not be best in another. The climate 
of Portland is not very dissimilar, however, 



128 DEALERS IN PILES AND POLES. 

from that of London, where treated wood-block 
pavements have been in use for over thirty years, 
both on streets with heavy traffic, and on fine road- 
ways. Paris has nearly four times as many square 
yards of wood pavement as of asphalt, and visitors 
report the Paris wood pavement as the finest they 
ever saw. Yet our wooden pavements have been 
largely a failure. They are not as durable as they 
should be, and as soon as they begin to break up 
they leave a street in a very bad condition. May 
it not be that we do not yet understand the best 
methods of treating and laying the blocks? At 
any rate, the paving problem, after hundreds, even 
thousands, of years of experience of past genera- 
tions, is still a perplexing one. 



Value of Pavements. 

Alderman Martin B. Maddin, of Chicago, in an 
article on the subject of the value of street 
pavements, published in the August issue of " City 
Government/' says : The first cost of a pavement is 
of great importance, but must be considered in con- 
nection with the life of the pavement and the cost 
of the maintenance. The method in Europe in 
figuring the value of a pavement, is to take the 
first cost, add to it the cost of maintenance for a 
period of, say 20 years, or the estimated life of the 
pavement and deducting value of the pavement at 
the end of the period ; and dividing this sum by the 
number of years, the annual cost of the pavement 
will be obtained. This is a very accurate method 
of gauging the value of the pavement because it 
gives ultimate results. If a pavement should cost 
$3 a yard, and costs 5c. per square yard for main- 
tenance for a period of 15 years, at the end of which 



PAVING BLOCKS FOR SALE. 129 

time it would be still almost as good as new, it 
would be a far cheaper pavement than one the first 
cost of which w r as $1.50 a square yard, but which 
had to be entirely renewed every 4 or 5 years. 



Wood Paznng. 



s- 



Street paving is a problem that is receiving a 
great deal of consideration in all large cities of the 
world at present and for some time past. The prin- 
cipal results desired are that it be not too costly, 
that it be durable, and that it be as noiseless as pos- 
sible, and that it does not become too slippery to 
give horses a good foothold. As to cost, we would 
say, that the probable durability and annual cost of 
maintaining in good condition should be given all 
consideration in that direction. The authentic and 
reliable evidence we give in the following pages on 
this subject should go far in proving that wood 
paving, if made suitable to climatic conditions, is 
the best solution of paving problems yet suggested. 
In consequence of the long dry seasons in Califor- 
nia the difficulty with wood pavements, when tried 
heretofore, has been that when the rainy season sets 
in, the blocks absorbed so much water that the expan- 
sion was so great that the pavement always bulged 
up and became impassable and useless and in con- 
sequence its use was abandoned. Since establishing 
our creosoting works we have experimented consid- 
erable with blocks suitable for paving purposes, 
and we find that a dried and seasoned block in its 
natural condition will absorb in the ratio of 24 
pounds of water per cubic foot, and a similar block 
being creosoted does not absorb any perceptible 
quantity, and w r hile the untreated timber expands 
about % of an inch per foot the creosote blocks re- 
tain their natural size, and the creosoted blocks be- 



130 PILES CREOSOTED. 

come extremely hard, and consequently the annual 
wear will be reduced to a minimum. This class of 
pavement would be very cheaply repaired after once 
being well and properly laid. 

In the discussion which is going on as to the best 
material for paving, wood is scoring a victory over 
all others. Brick is said to be the ruin of horses 
in furnishing a poor foothold. The Association 
for the preservation of Ffth' Avenue, N. Y., has 
not entertained the idea of using brick in connection 
with asphalt, granite, macadam and wood. In 
London, England, wood is the favorite, as shown in 
the opinions taken of drivers of vehicles, as follows : 
For asphalt, 51; for granite, 197; for macadam, 
219; for wood, 750. David Milliken, Jr., of New 
York, is quoted in the " Evening Post " as saying : 
There is some prejudice here against wood, but it 
only exists where there is a lack of knowledge. 
Laid as it is now, it is an artificial stone pavement 
with a wood covering, which may be very easily re- 
newed at little expense. Its average life in London, 
with repairing, is about ten years, and there is no 
difference in climatic effect here. It is said by 
some to be unhealthy. This is an unnecessary er- 
ror, for the engineer of sewers in London says that, 
although some streets there have been paved 
with wood for thirty years, no complaints 
have been made on that head, and recently 
a French bacteriologist gave data which also 
disproves this idea. It is in general use in 
London and Paris. There isn't an objection to it 
that is based on knowledge and it is indorsed by the 
city officials who are selected with a view to their 
knowledge of pavements. 



SAWN TIMBERS BURNETTIZED. 131 

Wood Pavement Growing in Favor. 

" The West Coast and Puget Sound Lumberman " 
calls attention to the growing favor toward wood 
pavement in cities. Brick is said to be the ruin 
of horses because it furnishes a poor foothold. In 
London wood is the favorite, as shown from the 
opinions taken from drivers of vehicles, as follows : 
For asphalt, 50 favored it; granite, 197; macadam, 
219; wood, 730. David Milliken, of New York, 
states that there is some prejudice against wood in 
that city, but it only exists where there is a lack of 
knowledge of its merits. Laid as it now is, with an 
artificial stone, or concrete pavement as a basis, it 
can be easily renewed at little expense. That is the 
method pursued in Paris, as was lately stated in the 
" Lumberman/' yellow pine from America being 
the wood preferred. Such a pavement in London 
lasts 10 years. In reply to the charge that wood 
pavement of the kind described is unhealthy, it can 
be said that the engineer for sewers in London, 
states that, though some streets in that city have 
been paved with wood for 30 years, no complaint has 
been received about unhealthiness. Recently a bac- 
teriologist gave data which also disproves the 
notion that wood pavement is unsanitary. In the 
northwest, starting with Chicago, cedar block pave- 
ment has been in use for 40 years, or more, but it 
is far from perfection because it is not properly laid. 
The foundation is earth or scrapings from the 
streets, mixed up with all sorts of debris, on which 
is laid hemlock plank. On this are placed cedar 
blocks perpendicularly with the grain, the blocks 
being cut from cedar posts 4 to 8 or 10 inches in di- 
ameter. This makes a cheap and fairly durable 
roadway for 5 or 6 years, but fails and becomes 
uneven under heavy traffic. A good deal of it is 



132 RAILROAD TIES CREOSOTED. 

annually laid, but asphalt and brick are being sub- 
stituted for this white cedar block pavement on 
all good residence streets. But there is no reason 
why the London and Parisian style of wood pave- 
ment should not be extensively introduced in this 
and all American cities where permanency of foun- 
dation can be afforded. The most permanent is the 
cheapest in the long run, anyway. 



Transactions American Society C. E., Vol. XIV., 
Jan.-Dec, 1885, Page 273. 

Experiment No. 14 was tried in New Orleans in 
1872. Cypress paving blocks were thoroughly 
boiled in creosote, or dead oil, in the still of G. H. 
Fletcher, and were laid in the yard of the New Or- 
leans Gas Light Co. They are said to have been 
saturated with not less than 20 lbs. and probably 
with 25 to 30 lbs. of dead oil to the cubic foot, and 
are now (1885) after 13 years' exposure as sound 
and perfect as when first laid. 



The Development of Wood Paving in Sydney. 

With the same experience in macadam, stone 
cubes, asphalt, and other systems that have taxed 
the energies, patience and financial powers of other 
cities, Sydney changed her policy fourteen years 
ago, and began experiments with wood pavements. 
The distracting noise, the early deterioration and 
heavy traction on stone cubes and macadam pave- 
ment, with the short life of asphalt and the con- 
stant annoyance of repairing, and the failures of all 
these systems of pavement, were irresistible argu- 
ments in favor of a new departure. Of course, 
many men of experience and observation knew well 



TELEGRAPH POLES CREOSOTED. 133 

the qualities peculiar to Australian woods, and the 
relative merits of many of them. By the use of 
large quantities of different timbers in railway- 
sleepers, sills, bridges, wharfs, fence-posts, etc., 
the better qualities of each had been studied and 
recognized. The important question of relative 
durability was fairly well established before wood 
paving had been suggested. Fourteen years ago 
the first pavement of this kind was laid in Sydney 
and now there is over 14 miles, including the chief 
streets, paved with this material; this includes all 
streets with heavy traffic. No other material now 
would be considered, and it is rapidly taking the 
place of other pavements as new streets are opened 
and old ones being repaired. The first streets were 
laid with open joints, or inch spaces between the 
blocks, the interstices being. filled with grout stone 
screenings or bituminous matter. 

The groundless fear of slipperiness lead to lay- 
ing the blocks with open joints, and the effect of 
traffic was to batter down or to bevel the corners, 
and as the filling fractured and was swept away the 
surface became corrugated, causing jolting, noise, 
inconvenience and confusion to traffic. The dif- 
ficulty of cleaning was also very great. With the 
experience and the aggressive notions of an enter- 
prising city engineer came the gradual closing of 
the joints as new streets were laid or old ones re- 
paired. Closing the joints to % inch decreased the 
confusion of traffic, decreased the wear of blocks, 
and decreased the work of cleaning, and to 
the surprise of many it did not increase the tendency 
to slipperiness. The young and progressive engi- 
neer was only flattered by this in his desire to reach 
the ideal pavement, and soon in 1888 came an ex- 
periment in close-jointed work. This experience 
demonstrated the wisdom of the solid concrete 



134 RAILROAD TIES BURNETTIZED. 

foundation, and led to a method of treating the 
blocks to a non-absorbent solution of hot tar, pitch, 
etc., and with the closing of the joints appeared a 
street superior, in the minds of many, in all that goes 
to make a desirable pavement, to any ever con- 
structed. The fears of the alarmist as to the slip- 
periness were not realized, and now, as the streets 
are renewed, the blocks are all placed with closed 
joints. George and Pitt Streets, the two leading 
thoroughfares having also the heavy traffic of the 
metropolis, are now undergoing repairs, the blocks 
being taken up, the upper end being sawed, 
and then replaced with closed joints. These 
streets have been used nearly eleven years, yet the 
blocks show no signs of deterioration or decay, and 
it is confidently believed that they will last from 
twelve to fifteen years, longer without further ex- 
pense. The foundations had no fractures, and 
needed no repair. 

Noise and Slipperiness. 

On this wood pavement with closed joints the 
surface wears so evenly that noise and confusion 
is reduced to a minimum ; while it is a little greater 
than on the best asphalt streets, it is, at most, of a 
slight rumbling nature, and not disturbing to the 
nerves or to business. The jar while riding over 
it in wheeled vehicles is somewhat greater, and it 
is accompanied with rather more noise than is ex- 
perienced while riding over the best asphalt while 
new, but both noise and jar is so slight and uniform 
as to produce no disagreeable sensation. As a 
fact, these streets laid with close joints are almost 
as even as the sawed end of a log, the new streets 
are fully as good for the bicycle, and almost as suit- 
able for the roller skate, as the asphalt avenues of 
splendid Washington. There is a little elasticity, 



BRIDGE TIMBER CREOSOTED. 135 

even in these hardest woods, and this breaks the 
shock caused by wheels striking elevations or .drop- 
ping from them. This elasticity, too, as slight as 
it is, is an enormous saving to horseflesh. Rapid 
driving over stone cubes, brick, or even hardened 
asphalt, soon tells on the gait of a horse. The 
" cabbies " of Sydney are hard drivers, but on the 
wood pavements no horse gets stiff or bunged up. 
While slipperiness is reduced to a minimum on Syd- 
ney's streets, I confess a doubt about the suitable- 
ness of close-jointed w r ood pavements for streets 
with steep grades. Owing to the cleanliness and 
absence of dust there is little call for sprinkling, 
but I feel rather sure that on steep grades this 
street, when wet, either from storm or sprinkling, 
would be slippery, especially for any considerable 
traffic. But this is just as true of a perfect as- 
phalt street, and not only true with stone cubes, 
because they are not smooth, and because not smooth 
are not desirabe for street purposes. There are 
a few places in Sydney having these close- joint 
pavements with rather steep gradients, on which the 
authorities have adopted a system of sanding, and 
this seems to obviate all the difficulty. The ex- 
penses for this occasional sanding are very small. 

Reflection of Heat. 

Another important feature which I think may be 
justly considered is, that these wood pavements 
store up and reflect less heat than any solid pave- 
ment. The almost unbearable flame-like heat re- 
flected from the asphalt and even granite streets in 
American cities, in the hottest weather, is fresh in 
the minds of all city dwellers or visitors. On the 
wood pavements we are exempt from these suffocat- 
ing tortures. A dull, unpainted, and unpolished 
wood surface reflects but little more heat than a 



136 FOUNDATION TIMBER CREOSOTED. 

common dirt road. When we consider the sum total 
of suffering by man and beast from the scorching ■ 
heat reflected from the surface of solid streets, as- 
phalt or stone, this is not an unimportant point to 
consider. 

Traction. 

I am not an engineer, a mechanic, or even and ex- 
perimentalist. I am only an observer. When I state 
a proposition as a fact, I believe it to be a fact, 
because the evidence appearing in response to such 
observation has convinced my understanding. I 
hope my readers will remember and carefully dis- 
criminate between my statements as to facts and my 
opinions, based upon a course of reasoning from 
conditions as they present themselves in practical 
affairs connected with the question under considera- 
tion. I have watched with astonishment the pon- 
derous loads hauled through the Sydney streets by 
one, two, or more horses. Nowhere have I ever 
seen anything approaching it. Two or three tons 
for a single horse, four or five, or even six tons for 
two horses, seven or eight or ten for four horses, are 
not very uncommon sights. It is surprising how 
small an obstacle in front of the wheels of a vehicle 
will check its progress, or, in other words, it is sur- 
prising how much the force must be augmented to 
overcome a seemingly trifling obstacle, elevation or 
inequality placed in front of the wheels of a heavily 
laden vehicle. Recently I watched a team of three 
heavy horses hauling a load of wood, weighing six 
or seven tons, on a clean, wood paved street. The 
load was moved with apparent ease; coming, how- 
ever, to the intersection of another street which had 
been freshly " sanded," the most casual observer 
would have noticed the increased efforts of the 
horses to draw the load across the thinly-scattered 



PRESERVED WOOD PAVING BLOCKS. 137 

70 or 80 feet of sand. These tiny grains of sand 
were an obstacle, and the team must give the added 
force necessary to overcome it. I have talked with 
several of these teamsters, and while they are not 
scientists nor philosophers, they have observed that 
on a smooth wood pavement they need only consider 
the strength of the wagon, while on the other pave- 
ments with gravel, sand, or other inequalities, or 
even on asphalt, they must regard the pulling power 
of their teams. From close observation and careful 
inquiry, I am satisfied that placed upon a common 
wagon on a close- jointed wood pavement, kept in 
the order usual in enterprising cities, a given force 
will haul 8 per cent, more than on the best asphalt 
street, and 20 per cent, more than on any cube stone 
or brick pavement. 

Cost and Durability, 

The experiments in Sydney have been very 
thorough and the experience very satisfactory. 
George Street, of which I spoke as being relaid from 
open to closed joints, after 10 years of use without 
repair of any kind, is one of the busiest thorough- 
fares in the world. Remember Sydney has a popu- 
lation of about 420,000, and in the value of its ton- 
nage is about the tenth commercial port in the world. 
It is the terminus of all the ship lines touching 
Australia, and has a recorded tonnage of 3,291,188 
tons. Five thousand entries and departures of ves- 
sels are recorded in its ports. A vast amount of this 
enormous tonnage is " carted " between " Redfern " 
Station — but one in the city — and the wharves. That 
means that nearly the entire products of New South 
Wales, including 10,000,000 lbs. of wool, come by 
rail to this station to be hauled to the wharves or 
warehouses over these streets, including also all 
that goes from the wharves to warehouses back to 



138 CREOSOTED PAVING BLOCKS. 

the interior of the country. For eleven years this 
wood paved street has stood this immense traffic 
without a break, and is only now being relaid to 
obviate the roughness caused by the open joints. 
The blocks taken from the middle of this street have 
worn on an average but 1-28 of an inch per year, or 
less than y 2 of an inch in the eleven years. George 
Street, too, is very narrow. In the heart of the city 
it is hardly more than 48 feet between the curbs. 
The magnitude of the George Street traffic may be 
better understood by explaining the fact that most 
of the business done in other cities by street cars and 
tramways is done here by buses and other vehicles. 
There are 140 large buses, weighing from 2,100 to 
3,500 lbs. empty, which carry from 16 to 42 persons. 
They are usually well loaded, and will then weigh 
four to seven tons. They are drawn by three to five 
horses, which move on a sweeping trot. The 
vehicles passing on George Street in three hours 
have been observed at given points or crossings, and 
it stands as follows as per record : Hunter Street, 
636; King Street, 980; Park Street, 731 ; Goulburn 
Street, 1,072; Hay Street, 1,451; Harris Street, 
1,056; Police Station, 1,469. Then there are 640 
heavy " goods vans" and 1,215 cabs, in passenger 
and transfer service, besides the enormous vehicles 
that carry the millions of pounds of extra heavy 
tonnage. I know of no street in any city of the 
world with more traffic than this narrow Sydney 
street, where wood pavement has proved its super- 
iority over all others. The City Surveyor's report 
claims that one wood pavement on these busy streets 
will outlast three made of stone cubes. Castlereagh 
Street was laid with close joint blocks ten years ago. 
It has considerable, but not heavy traffic. There 
has been no expense for maintenance, and it is one 
of the finest streets I ever saw in any city. From 



TELEGRAPH POLES BURNETTIZED. 139 

my observations then, and from such information as 
I am able to glean from many articles and reports, 
in the matter of expense, durability and general de- 
sirableness, I regard the wood pavement in Sydney 
superior to any other now in use. Law and Clark's 
Roads and Streets, page 239, gives the wear of three 
wood pavements at 3-10 of an inch per annum under 
a traffic averaging 362 vehicles per day of 12 hours 
for each foot in width of the street. Mr. Clark says 
it is claimed, in some instances, blocks have worn 
down in London to a depth of two and one half 
inches (the Wells Street pavement was only two 
inches thick, before removal), and suggests eight or 
nine inches as a better depth than six inches, now 
universal. The blocks of the Mincing Lane pave- 
ment, which lasted 19 years, were nine inches deep. 
If we assume that the blocks are six inches deep, 
and that the road will not break up until they have 
worn down three inches, there seems no reason why 
a thoroughly creosoted wood pavement, laid with 
narrow joints, on a sufficient bed of concrete, with 
a water tight stratum interposed, should not wear 
for about ten years in our streets of heaviest traffic 
with a small amount of intelligent maintenance. 

There have been several charges made against 
wood pavements which are mentioned here, not as a 
matter of information, viz., that they soon become 
full of holes, are impossible to clean, are difficult to 
replace when the street is opened, and that by their 
rotting the health of the community is endangered, 
to which may be added that for only a short time do 
they present any barrier to the saturation of the soil 
by surface water. 

The general practice, as far as observed by the 
writer, in this country, has been to lay green or wet 
pine blocks, more or less thoroughly dipped in coal 
tar, on a bed of sand, not always rammed, with or 



140 BRIDGE TIMBER BURNETTIZED. 

without the interposition of a tarred pine board, with 
transverse joints from one to one and one-half inches 
wide filled with gravel and coal tar, which was 
theoretically thoroughly compacted. Omitting those 
which, without the slightest pretense of a one-inch 
board for foundation, speedily becomes a wood 
macadam, the first failure was from the blocks rot- 
ting on the bottom in patches, so that the surface 
would first be found to be sheared down by a heavy 
load; and on taking out the blocks they would be 
found sound on their tops, where the gravel had 
been driven into them by the traffic, and also a sound 
film of about the thickness that tar could be expected 
to penetrate a wet block, the inside being rotten. In 
other cases, however, when the layer of sand was 
too thin, the mud worked up through both boards 
and blocks, reducing everything to about the state 
of those having no boards under them. 

A layer of concrete, covered with Trinidad bitu- 
men, will effectually stop the mud from coming up, 
and any percolation of the surface water into the 
soil through the pavement; the narrow joints, by 
preventing the edges of the blocks burring over, will 
both tend to keep the surface smooth, lessening the 
shocks of the wheels, and greatly facilitate all the 
operations of cleansing. Creosoting, by the pre- 
servative and antiseptic properties of the dead oils 
used in that process, will probably keep the timber 
from decay, so that nothing but abrasion need be 
feared, and the sanitary objections to decaying wood 
will be removed. 

The following note of some experiments by E. R. 
Andrews (published in the Engineering News) 
shows the efficacy of creosoting for protecting wood 
from moisture. 

The following are the results of some careful ex- 
periments with different varieties of wood, half of 



DEALERS IN PILES AND POLES. 141 

the specimens being simply dried and the others 
creosoted, to ascertain to what extent wood is rend- 
ered waterproof by creosoting. The specimens were 
soaked during two days in water, being carefully 
weighed before and after soaking : 
Percentage of water absorbed : 

Spruce, creosoted 0236 

Spruce, creosoted 0306 

Spruce, dried only I 754 

Spruce, dried only 3333 

Spruce, Burnettized 2500 

Hard pine, creosoted 0000 

Hard pine, dried only 1600 

Oak, creosoted 0625 

Oak, dried only 2000 

White birch, creosoted 1240 

White birch, dried only 4300 

Cottonwood, creosoted 347° 

Cottonwood, dried only 7 x 4i 

Black gum, creosoted 1250 

Black gum, dried only 1.0000 

Sequoia gigantea (great tree of Cal- 
ifornia) creosoted 0000 

Sequoia gigantea, dried only 4722 

In the rooms of this society are creosoted fir ties 
from England that have been in the track for 20 
years, and apparently justify the assertion of the 
engineer sending them, that they are good for ten 
years more. 

The following extract from the Railroad Gazette, 
is also corroborative. 

The German Railroad Union, some time ago, 
made inquiries as to the extent to which processes 
for preserving ties were employed, and what the re- 
sults were. It appears from statistics of German 
railroads which have used treated ties more or less 



142 PAVING BLOCKS FOR SALE. 

since 1840, and therefore have had time to test thor- 
oughly the life of the ties, that the average life of 
ties not treated, and of those treated with chloride of 
zinc or creosote has been : 

Not treated. Treated. 
Years. Years. 

Oak ties 13.6 19.5 

Fir ties 7.2 14 to 16 

Pine ties 5.0 8 to 10 

Beach ties 3.0 15 to 18 

The average life of 831,341 pine ties treated in 
various ways on 13 German railroads was 14 years. 

It follows from this that there is an increase in the 
life of ties treated with chloride of zinc or creosote, 
amounting to about 40 per cent, for oak, 100 to 130 
per cent, for fir, 60 to 100 for pine, and 400 to 500 
per cent, for beech. 

It thus appears that there is a great deal gained 
with any kind of wood, but most with some of those 
usually not considered good for ties, fir and beech 
being made almost as durable as oak. Bischoff says 
that it is of little advantage to secure ties from decay 
longer than periods above stated, as the ties usually 
become worn out or crushed by that time, even if not 
decayed. Commenting on these facts, Bischoff says 
that it is now generally admitted that the choice lies 
between creosote and chloride of zinc; that creo- 
sote is the best antiseptic material, but also that it is 
the dearest. 

There can be but little doubt that the antiseptic 
properties of the creosoting process are of more 
value than the increased life it would give to the 
blocks. On account of the absence of proper stone 
and the cheapness of wood in large areas of our 
country, the small first cost of wood pavements 
seems to make it worth while to give them an intelli- 
gent trial. 



SAWN TIMBERS CREOSOTED. 143 

The thoroughness with which wood pavements 
can be cleansed depends on the size of the joints and 
the firmness of their filling. The practice in Lon- 
don, when the mud is at all sticky and not thick as 
to require scraping, is to water and then sweep with 
a revolving broom, the thoroughness of the cleans- 
ing being almost directly as to the amount of water. 
In hot weather a disinfectant is sometimes applied 
after sweeping. 

The number of testimonials given in favor of creo- 
sote is very large, and from the most eminent 
engineers of all countries, in addition to which Mr. 
Bethell has received several medals at International 
Exhibitions. The English engineers include Messrs. 
Brunei, Gregory, Abernethy, Ure, Hemans, Hawk- 
shaw, and Cudworth ; the French, MM. Molinos and 
Forestier; the Dutch, Messrs. Waldorp, Freem, and 
Von Baumhauer ; and the Belgian, M. Crepin. The 
late Mr. Brunei expressly stated that, in his opinion, 
well creosoted timbers would be found in a sound 
and serviceable condition at the expiration of forty 
years. M. Forestier, French engineer of La Vendee 
Department, reporting to the juries of the French 
Exhibition of 1867, cites a number of experiments 
he has lately tried upon many pieces of creosoted 
and uncreosoted oak, elm, ash, Swedish, Norwegian, 
and Dantzic red fir, Norway white fir, plane, and 
poplar, and shows that in each case, except that of 
poplar, the resistance of the wood both to bending 
and crushing weight was much increased by creo- 
soting. 

Drs. Brande, Ure, and Letheby, also bear testi- 
mony to the efficacy of this mode of preserving 
timber. 

Creosoting has been extensively employed upon all 
the principal railways in Great Britain. In Eng- 
land, upon the London and North Western, 



144 PILES CREOSOTED. 

North Eastern, South Eastern, Great Western, etc. 
In Ireland, on the Great Southern and Western, 
Midland, etc. In Scotland, on the Caledonian, Great 
Northern, etc. It has also been and is being em- 
ployed in Belgium, Holland, France, Prussia, India 
and America. 



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